A general introduction to psychoanalysis

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

FROM THE LIBRARY OF

JIM TULLY

GIFT OF
MRS. JIM TULLY

SCHWIND, The Dream of the Prisoner
See page 109 for analysis

A General Introduction

to
Psychoanalysis

BY
PROF. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D.

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION
WITH A PREFACE

BY

G. STANLEY HALL

PRESIDENT, CLARK UNIVERSITY

BONI AND LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Published, 1920, by
BOKI & LrivEHioHT, INC.

Firtt Edition Jung, 19tO

Second Edition June, 19tO

Third Edition August, 1910

Fourth Edition September, 19SO

Fifth Edition November, 19SO

Sixth Edition January, 1911

Seventh Edition Apnl, 1VS1

Eighth Edition September, 1MI

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173

PREFACE 11

-fc--

Few, especially in this country, realize that while Freudian
themes have rarely found a place on the programs of the Ameri-
can Psychological Association, they have attracted great and
growing attention and found frequent elaboration by students
of literature, history, biography, sociology, morals and aesthetics,
anthropology, education, and religion. They have given the
world a new conception of both infancy and adolescence, and
shed much new light upon characterology ; given us a new and
clearer view of sleep, dreams, reveries, and revealed hitherto
unknown mental mechanisms common to normal and pathological
states and processes, showing that the law of causation extends
to the most incoherent acts and even verbigerations in insanity ;
gone far to clear up the terra incognita of hysteria; taught us
to recognize morbid symptoms, often neurotic and psychotic in
their germ; revealed the operations of the primitive mind so
overlaid and repressed that we had almost lost sight of them;
fashioned and used the key of symbolism to unlock many mysti-
cisms of the past ; and in addition to all this, affected thousands
of cures, established a new prophylaxis, and suggested new tests
for character, disposition, and ability, in all combining the
practical and theoretic to a degree salutary as it is rare.

These twenty-eight lectures to laymen are elementary and
almost conversational. Freud sets forth with a frankness
almost startling the difficulties and limitations of psychoanalysis,
and also describes its main methods and results as only a master
and originator of a new school of thought can do. These dis-
courses are at the same time simple and almost confidential, and
they trace and sum up the results of thirty years of devoted and
painstaking research. While they are not at all controversial,
we incidentally see in a clearer light the distinctions between the
master and some of his distinguished pupils. A text like this is
*he most opportune and will naturally more or less supersede all
other introductions to the general subject of psychoanalysis. It
presents the author in a new light, as an effective and successful

T

1143308

vi Preface

popularizer, and is certain to be welcomed not only by the large
and growing number of students of psychoanalysis in this country
but by the yet larger number of those who wish to begin its study
here and elsewhere.

The impartial student of Sigmund Freud need not agree with
all his conclusions, and indeed, like the present writer, may be
unable to make sex so all-dominating a factor in the psychic life
of the past and present as Freud deems it to be, to recognize the
fact that he is the most original and creative mind in psychology
of our generation. Despite the frightful handicap of the odium
sexicum, far more formidable today than the odium theologicum,
involving as it has done for him lack of academic recognition and
even more or less social ostracism, his views have attracted and
inspired a brilliant group of minds not only in psychiatry but
in many other fields, who have altogether given the world of
culture more new and pregnant appercus than those which have
come from any other source within the wide domain of humanism.

A former student and disciple of Wundt, who recognizes to
the full his inestimable services to our science, cannot avoid
making certain comparisons. Wundt has had for decades the
prestige of a most advantageous academic chair. He founded
the first laboratory for experimental psychology, which attracted
many of the most gifted and mature students from all lands.
By his development of the doctrine of apperception he took
psychology forever beyond the old associationism which had
ceased to be fruitful. He also established the independence of
psychology from physiology, and by his encyclopedic and always
thronged lectures, to say nothing of his more or less esoteric
seminary, he materially advanced every branch of mental science
and extended its influence over the whole wide domain of folklore,
mores, language, and primitive religion. His best texts will long
constitute a thesaurus which every psychologist must know.

Again, like Freud, he inspired students who went beyond him
(the Wurzburgera and introspectionists) whose method and
results he could not follow. His limitations have grown more
and more manifest. He has little use for the unconscious or the
abnormal, and for the most part he has lived and wrought in a
preevolutionary age and always and everywhere underestimated
the genetic standpoint. He never transcends the conventional
limits in dealing, as he so rarely does, with sex. Nor does he

Preface vii

contribute much likely to be of permanent value in any part of
the wide domain of affectivity. We cannot forbear to express
the hope that Freud will not repeat Wundt's error in making
too abrupt a break with his more advanced pupils like Adler or
the Zurich group. It is rather precisely just the topics that
Wundt neglects that Freud makes his chief corner-stones, viz.,
the unconscious, the abnormal, sex, and affectivity generally, with
many genetic, especially ontogenetic, but also phylogenetic
factors. The Wundtian influence has been great in the past,
while Freud has a great present and a yet greater future.

In one thing Freud agrees with the introspectionists, viz., in
deliberately neglecting the "physiological factor" and building
on purely psychological foundations, although for Freud psy-
chology is mainly unconscious, while for the introspectionists it
is pure consciousness. Neither he nor his disciples have yet
recognized the aid proffered them by students of the autonomic
system or by the distinctions between the epicritic and proto-
pathic functions and organs of the cerebrum, although these will
doubtless come to have their due place as we know more of the
nature and processes of the unconscious mind.

If psychologists of the normal have hitherto been too little
disposed to recognize the precious contributions to psychology
made by the cruel experiments of Nature in mental diseases, we
think that the psychoanalysts, who work predominantly in this
field, have been somewhat too ready to apply their findings to the
operations of the normal mind ; but we are optomistic enough to
believe that in the end both these errors will vanish and that in
the great synthesis of the future that now seems to impend our
science will be made vastly richer and deeper on the theoretical
side and also far more practical than it has ever been before.

G. STANLEY HALL.

Clark University,
April, 1920.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

The Psychology of Errors

PAQB

PREFACE G. Stanley Hall v

LECTURE

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS 10

III. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS — (Continued) 23

IV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS — (Conclusion) 41

PART TWO
The Dream

V. DIFFICULTIES AND PRELIMINARY APPROACH 63

VI. HYPOTHESIS AND TECHNIQUE OF INTERPRETATION .... 78

VII. MANIFEST DREAM CONTENT AND LATENT DREAM THOUGHT 90

VIII. DREAMS OF CHILDHOOD . 101

*"" IX. THE DREAM CENSOR 110

X. SYMBOLISM IN THE DREAM 12&

XI. THE DREAM-WORK 141

XII. ANALYSES or SAMPLE DREAMS 153 —

XIII. ARCHAIC EEMNANTS AND INFANTILISM IN THE DREAM . . 167

XIV. WISH FULFILLMENT 180

XV. DOUBTFUL POINTS AND CRITICISM . 194

PART THREE

General Theory of the Neuroses

XVI. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHIATRY 209

XVII. THE MEANING OF THE SYMPTOMS 221

XVIII. TRAUMATIC FIXATION — THE UNCONSCIOUS 236

XIX. RESISTANCE AND SUPRESSION 248

XX. THE SEXUAL LIFE or MAN 262

XXI. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIBIDO AND SEXUAL ORGANIZATIONS 277

XXII. THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT AND REGRESSION — ETIOLOGY . 294

XXIII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYMPTOMS 311

ix

Contents.

LECTtTUC

xxrv.
xxv.

XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
INDEX

ORDINARY NERVOUSNESS . . .

FEAR AND ANXIETT

THE LIBIDO THEORY AND NAHCISM
TRANSFERENCE

ANALYTICAL THERAPY ,

PAGE

328
340
356
372

388
403

PART I
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS

FIRST LECTURE

INTRODUCTION

1DO not know how familiar some of you may be, either from
your reading or from hearsay, with psychoanalysis. But,
in keeping with the title of these lectures — A General
Introduction to Psychoanalysis — I am obliged to pro-
ceed as though you knew nothing about this subject, and stood
in need of preliminary instruction.

To be sure, this much I may presume that you do know,
namely, that psychoanalysis is a method of treating nervous
patients medically. And just at this point I can give you an
example to illustrate how the procedure in this field is precisely
the reverse of that which is the rule in medicine. Usually when
we introduce a patient to a medical technique which is strange
to him, we minimize its difficulties and give him confident
promises concerning the result of the treatment. When, how-
ever, we undertake psychoanalytic treatment with a neurotic
patient we proceed differently. "We hold before him the diffi-
culties of the method, its length, the exertions and the sacrifices
which it will cost him ; and, as to the result, we tell him that we
make no definite promises, that the result depends on his conduct,
on his understanding, on his adaptability, on his perseverance.
We have, of course, excellent motives for conduct which seems
so perverse, and into which you will perhaps gain insight at a
later point in these lectures.

Do not be offended, therefore, if, for the present, I treat you
as I treat these neurotic patients. Frankly, I shall dissuade
you from coming to hear me a second time. With this intention
I shall show what imperfections are necessarily involved in
the teaching of psychoanalysis and what difficulties stand in
the way of gaining a personal judgment. I shall show you how
the whole trend of your previous training and all your accus-
tomed mental habits must unavoidably have made you opponent*
of psychoanalysis, and how much you must overcome in your.

1

2 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

selves in order to master this instinctive opposition. Of course
I cannot predict how much psychoanalytic understanding you
will gain from my lectures, but I can promise this, that by listen-
ing to them you will not learn how to undertake a psychoanalytic
treatment or how to carry one to completion. Furthermore,
should I find anyone among you who does not feel satisfied with
a cursory acquaintance with psychoanalysis, but who would
like to enter into a more enduring relationship with it, I shall
not only dissuade him, but I shall actually warn him against
it. As things now stand, a person would, by such a choice of
profession, ruin his every chance of success at a university, and
if he goes out into the world as a practicing physician, he will
find himself in a society which does not understand his aims,
which regards him with suspicion and hostility, and which turns
loose upon him all the malicious spirits which lurk within it.

However, there are always enough individuals who are inter-
ested in anything which may be added to the sum total of
knowledge, despite such inconveniences. Should there be any
of this type among you, and should they ignore my dissuasion
and return to the next of these lectures, they will be welcome.
But all of you have the right to know what these difficulties of
psychoanalysis are to which I have alluded.

First of all, we encounter the difficulties inherent in the
teaching and exposition of psychoanalysis. In your medical
instruction you have been accustomed to visual demonstration.
You see the anatomical specimen, the precipitate in the chemical
reaction, the contraction of the muscle as the result of the
stimulation of its nerves. Later the patient is presented to your
senses ; the symptoms of his malady, the products of the patho-
logical processes, in many cases even the cause of the disease is
shown in isolated state. In the surgical department you are
made to witness the steps by which one brings relief to the
patient, and are permitted to attempt to practice them. Even
in psychiatry, the demonstration affords you, by the patient's
changed facial play, his manner of speech and his behavior, a
wealth of observations which leave far-reaching impressions.
Thus the medical teacher preponderantly plays the role of a
guide and instructor who accompanies you through a museum
in which you contract an immediate relationship to the exhibits,
and in which you believe yourself to have been convinced through

Introduction 3

your own observation of the existence of the new things you see.

Unfortunately, everything is different in psychoanalysis. In
psychoanalysis nothing occurs but the interchange of words be-
tween the patient and the physician. The patient talks, tells
of his past experiences and present impressions, complains, con-
fesses his wishes and emotions. The physician listens, tries to
direct the thought processes of the patient, reminds him of things,
forces his attention into certain channels, gives him explanations
and observes the reactions of understanding or denial which he
calls forth in the patient. The uneducated relatives of our
patients — persons who are impressed only by the visible and
tangible, preferably by such procedure as one sees in the moving
picture theatres — never miss an opportunity of voicing their
scepticism as to how one can "do anything for the malady
through mere talk." Such thinking, of course, is as short-
sighted as it is inconsistent. For these are the very persons who
know with such certainty that the patients "merely imagine"
their symptoms. Words were originally magic, and the word
retains much of its old magical power even to-day. With words
one man can make another blessed, or drive him to despair ; by
words the teacher transfers his knowledge to the pupil ; by words
the speaker sweeps his audience with him and determines its
judgments and decisions. Words call forth effects and are the
universal means of influencing human beings. Therefore let
us not underestimate the use of words in psychotherapy, and
let us be satisfied if we may be auditors of the words which are
exchanged between the analyst and his patient.

But even that is impossible. The conversation of which the
psychoanalytic treatment consists brooks no auditor, it cannot
be demonstrated. One can, of course, present a neurasthenic
or hysteric to the students in a psychiatric lecture. He tells of
his complaints and symptoms, but of nothing else. The com-
munications which are necessary for the analysis are made only
under the conditions of a special affective relationship to the
physician ; the patient would become dumb as soon as he became
aware of a single impartial witness. For these communications
concern the most intimate part of his psychic life, everything
which as a socially independent person he must conceal from
others; these communications deal with everything which, as a
harmonious personality, he will not admit even to himself.

* Introduction to Psychoanalysis

You cannot, therefore, "listen in" on a psychoanalytic treat-
ment. You can only hear of it. You will get to know psycho-
analysis, in the strictest sense of the word, only by hearsay.
Such instruction even at second hand, will place you in quite
an unusual position for forming a judgment. For it is obvious
that everything depends on the faith you are able to put in the
instructor.

Imagine that you are not attending a psychiatric, but an
historical lecture, and that the lecturer is telling you about the
life and martial deeds of Alexander the Great. What would
be your reasons for believing in the authenticity of his state-
ments? At first sight, the condition of affairs seems even more
unfavorable than in the case of psychoanalysis, for the history
professor was as little a participant in Alexander's campaigns
as you were; the psychoanalyst at least tells you of things in
connection with which he himself has played some role. But
then the question turns on this — what set of facts can the his-
torian marshal in support of his position? He can refer you
to the accounts of ancient authors, who were either contempo-
raries themselves, or who were at least closer to the events in
question; that is, he will refer you to the books of Diodor,
Plutarch, Arrian, etc. He can place before you pictures of the
preserved coins and statues of the king and can pass down your
rows a photograph of the Pompeiian mosaics of the battle of
Issos. Yet, strictly speaking, all these documents prove only
that previous generations already believed in Alexander's exis-
tence and in the reality of his deeds, and your criticism might
begin anew at this point. You will then find that not everything
recounted of Alexander is credible, or capable of proof in
detail; yet even then I cannot believe that you will leave the
lecture hall a disbeliever in the reality of Alexander the Great.
Your decision will be determined chiefly by two considerations ;
firstly, that the lecturer has no conceivable motive for present-
ing as truth something which he does not himself believe to be
true, and secondly, that all available histories present the events
in approximately the same manner. If you then proceed to the
verification of the older sources, you will consider the same data,
the possible motives of the writers and the consistency of the
various parts of the evidence. The result of the examination
will surely be convincing in the case of Alexander. It will

Introduction 5

probably turn out differently when applied to individuals like
Moses and Nimrod. But what doubts you might raise against
the credibility of the psychoanalytic reporter you will see
plainly enough upon a later occasion.

At this point you have a right to raise the question, "If there
is no such thing as objective verification of psychoanalysis, and
no possibility of demonstrating it, how can one possibly learn
psychoanalysis and convince himself of the truth of its claims ? ' '
The fact is, the study is not easy and there are not many per-
sons who have learned psychoanalysis thoroughly; but never-
theless, there is a feasible way. Psychoanalysis is learned, first
of all, from a study of one's self, through the study of one's own
personality. This is not quite what is ordinarily called self-
observation, but, at a pinch, one can sum it up thus. There is a
whole series of very common and universally known psychic
phenomena, which, after some instruction in the technique of
psychoanalysis, one can make the subject matter of analysis in
one's self. By so doing one obtains the desired conviction of the
reality of the occurrences which psychoanalysis describes and
of the correctness of its fundamental conception. To be sure,
there are definite limits imposed on progress by this method.
One gets much further if one allows himself to be analyzed by a
competent analyst, observes the effect of the analysis on his own
ego, and at the same time makes use of the opportunity to
become familiar with the finer details of the technique of pro-
cedure. This excellent method is, of course, only practicable
for one person, never for an entire class.

There is a second difficulty in your relation to psychoanalysis
for which I cannot hold the science itself responsible, but for
which I must ask you to take the responsibility upon yourselves,
ladies and gentlemen, at least in so far as you have hitherto pur-
sued medical studies. Your previous training has given your
mental activity a definite bent which leads you far away from
psychoanalysis. You have been trained to reduce the functions
of an organism and its disorders anatomically, to explain them
in terms of chemistry and physics and to conceive them biol-
ogically, but no portion of your interest has been directed to
the psychic life, in which, after all, the activity of this wonder-
fully complex organism culminates. For this reason psycho-
logical thinking has remained strange to you and you have

6 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

accustomed yourselves to regard it with suspicion, to deny it the
character of the scientific, to leave it to the laymen, poets, natu-
ral philosophers and mystics. Such a delimitation is surely
harmful to your medical activity, for the patient will, as is usual
in all human relationships, confront you first of all with his
psychic facade ; and I am afraid your penalty will be this, that
you will be forced to relinquish a portion of the therapeutic
influence to which you aspire, to those lay physicians, nature-
cure fakers and mystics whom you despise.

I am not overlooking the excuse, whose existence one must
admit, for this deficiency in your previous training. There is
no philosophical science of therapy which could be made prac-
ticable for your medical purpose. Neither speculative philoso-
phy nor descriptive psychology nor that so-called experimental
psychology which allies itself with the physiology of the sense
organs as it is taught in the schools, is in a position to teach
you anything useful concerning the relation between the physical
and the psychical or to put into your hand the key to the under-
standing of a possible disorder of the psychic functions. Within
the field of medicine, psychiatry does, it is true, occupy itself
with the description of the observed psychic disorders and with
their grouping into clinical symptom-pictures; but in their
better hours the psychiatrists themselves doubt whether their
purely descriptive account deserves the name of a science. The
symptoms which constitute these clinical pictures are known
neither in their origin, in their mechanism, nor in their mutual
relationship. There are either no discoverable corresponding
changes of the anatomical organ of the soul, or else the changes
are of such a nature as to yield no enlightenment. Such psychic
disturbances are open to therapeutic influence only when they
can be identified as secondary phenomena of an otherwise organic
affection.

Here is the gap which psychoanalysis aims to fill. It prepares
to give psychiatry the omitted psychological foundation, it hopes
to reveal the common basis from which, as a starting point, con-
stant correlation of bodily and psychic disturbances becomes
comprehensible. To this end, it must divorce itself from every
anatomical, chemical or physiological supposition which is alien
to it. It must work throughout with purely psychological

Introduction 7

therapeutic concepts, and just for that reason I fear that it will
at first seem strange to you.

I will not make you, your previous training, or your mental
bias share the guilt of the next difficulty. With two of its
assertions, psychoanalysis offends the whole world and draws
aversion upon itself. One of these assertions offends an intellec-
tual prejudice, the other an aesthetic-moral one. Let us not
think too lightly of these prejudices; they are powerful things,
remnants of useful, even necessary, developments of mankind.
They are retained through powerful affects, and the battle
against them is a hard one.

The first of these displeasing assertions of psychoanalysis
is this, that the psychic processes are in themselves unconscious,
and that those which are conscious are merely isolated acts and
parts of the total psychic life. Recollect that we are, on the
contrary, accustomed to identify the psychic with the conscious.
Consciousness actually means for us the distinguishing charac-
teristic of the psychic life, and psychology is the science of the
content of consciousness. Indeed, so obvious does this identifica-
tion seem to us that we consider its slightest contradiction ob-
vious nonsense, and yet psychoanalysis cannot avoid raising this
contradiction ; it cannot accept the identity of the conscious with
the psychic. Its definition of the psychic affirms that they are
processes of the nature of feeling, thinking, willing ; and it must
assert that there is such a thing as unconscious thinking and un-
conscious willing. But with this assertion psychoanalysis has
alienated, to start with, the sympathy of all friends of sober sci-
ence, and has laid itself open to the suspicion of being a fantastic
mystery study which would build in darkness and fish in murky
waters. You, however, ladies and gentlemen, naturally cannot as
yet understand what justification I have for stigmatizing as a
prejudice so abstract a phrase as this one, that "the psychic is
consciousness." You cannot know what evaluation can have led
to the denial of the unconscious, if such a thing really exists,
and what advantage may have resulted from this denial. It
sounds like a mere argument over words whether one shall say
that the psychic coincides with the conscious or whether one
shall extend it beyond that, and yet I can assure you that by
the acceptance of unconscious processes you have paved the
Way for a decisively new orientation in the world and in science.

8 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Just as little can you guess how intimate a connection this
initial boldness of psychoanalysis has with the one which fol-
lows. The next assertion which psychoanalysis proclaims as
one of its discoveries, affirms that those instinctive impulses
which one can only call sexual in the narrower as well as in the
wider sense, play an uncommonly large role in the causation of
nervous and mental diseases, and that those impulses are a
causation which has never been adequately appreciated. Nay,
indeed, psychoanalysis claims that these same sexual impulses
have made contributions whose value cannot be overestimated
to the highest cultural, artistic and social achievements of the
human mind.

According to my experience, the aversion to this conclusion
of psychoanalysis is the most significant source of the opposition
which it encounters. Would you like to know how we explain
this fact ? We believe that civilization was forged by the driving
force of vital necessity, at the cost of instinct-satisfaction,
and that the process is to a large extent constantly repeated
anew, since each individual who newly enters the human com-
munity repeats the sacrifices of his instinct-satisfaction for the
sake of the common good. Among the instinctive forces thus
utilized, the sexual impulses play a significant role. They are
thereby sublimated, i.e., they are diverted from their sexual goals
and directed to ends socially higher and no longer sexual. But
this result is unstable. The sexual instincts are poorly tamed.
Each individual who wishes to ally himself with the achieve-
ments of civilization is exposed to the danger of having his
sexual instincts rebel against this sublimation. Society can
conceive of no more serious menace to its civilization than would
arise through the satisfying of the sexual instincts by their
redirection toward their original goals. Society, therefore, does
not relish being reminded of this ticklish spot in its origin; it
has no interest in having the strength of the sexual instincts
recognized and the meaning of the sexual life to the individual
clearly delineated. On the contrary, society has taken the course
of diverting attention from this whole field. This is the reason
why society will not tolerate the above-mentioned results of
psychoanalytic research, and would prefer to brand it as
aesthetically offensive and morally objectionable or dangerous.
Since, however, one cannot attack an ostensibly objective result

Introduction 9

of scientific inquiry with such objections, the criticism must be
translated to an intellectual level if it is to be voiced. But it is
a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea
untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it. Society
thus brands what is unpleasant as untrue, denying the conclu-
sions of psychoanalysis with logical and pertinent arguments.
These arguments originate from affective sources, however, and
society holds to these prejudices against all attempts at refuta-
tion.

However, we may claim, ladies and gentlemen, that we have
followed no bias of any sort in making any of these contested
statements. We merely wished to state facts which we believe
to have been discovered by toilsome labor. And we now claim
the right unconditionally to reject the interference in scientific
research of any such practical considerations, even before we
have investigated whether the apprehension which these con-
siderations are meant to instil are justified or not.

These, therefore, are but a few of the difficulties which stand
in the way of your occupation with psychoanalysis. They are
perhaps more than enough for a beginning. If you can over-
come their deterrent impression, we shall continue.

SECOND LECTURE

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS

WE begin with an investigation, not with hypotheses.
To this end we choose certain phenomena which
are very frequent, very familiar and very little
heeded, and which have nothing to do with the
pathological, inasmuch as they can be observed in every normal
person. I refer to the errors which an individual commits —
as for example, errors of speech in which he wishes to say some-
thing and uses the wrong word ; or those which happen to him in
writing, and which he may or may not notice; or the case of
misreading, in which one reads in the print or writing something
different from what is actually there. A similar phenomenon
occurs in those cases of mishearing what is said to one, where
there is no question of an organic disturbance of the auditory
function. Another series of such occurrences is based on for-
getfulness — but on a forgetfulness which is not permanent, but
temporary, as for instance when one cannot think of a name
which one knows and always recognizes; or when one forgets
to carry out a project at the proper time but which one re-
members again later, and therefore has only forgotten for a
certain interval. In a third class this characteristic of transience
is lacking, as for example in mislaying things so that they cannot
be found again, or in the analogous case of losing things. Here
we are dealing with a kind of forgetfulness to which one reacts
differently from the other cases, a forgetfulness at which one is
surprised and annoyed, instead of considering it comprehensible.
Allied with these phenomena is that of erroneous ideas — in
which the element of transience is again prominent, inasmuch
as for a while one believes something which, before and after
that time, one knows to be untrue — and a number of similar
phenomena of different designations.

These are all occurrences whose inner connection is expressed

10

The Psychology of Errors 11

in the use of the same prefix of designation.1 They are almost
all unimportant, generally temporary and without much signifi-
cance in the life of the individual. It is only rarely that one of
them, such as the phenomenon of losing things, attains to a cer-
tain practical importance. For that reason also they do not
attract much attention, they arouse only weak affects.

It is, therefore, to these phenomena that I would now direct
your attention. But you will object, with annoyance: "There
are so many sublime riddles in the external world, just as there
are in the narrower world of the psychic life, and so many
wonders in the field of psychic disturbances which demand and
deserve elucidation, that it really seems frivolous to waste labor
and interest on such trifles. If you can explain to us how an
individual with sound eyes and ears can, in broad daylight, see
and hear things that do not exist, or why another individual
suddenly believes himself persecuted by those whom up to that
time he loved best, or defend, with the most ingenious arguments,
delusions which must seem nonsense to any child, then we will
be willing to consider psychoanalysis seriously. But if psycho-
analysis can do nothing better than to occupy us with the ques-
tion of why a speaker used the wrong word, or why a housekeeper
mislaid her keys, or such trifles, then we know something better
to do with our time and interest."

My reply is : ' ' Patience, ladies and gentlemen. I think your
criticism is not on the right track. It is true that psychoanalysis
cannot boast that it has never occupied itself with trifles. On
the contrary, the objects of its observations are generally those
simple occurrences which the other sciences have thrown aside
as much too insignificant, the waste products of the phenomenal
world. But are you not confounding, in your criticism, the
sublimity of the problems with the conspicuousness of their
manifestations? Are there not very important things which
under certain circumstances, and at certain times, can betray
themselves only by very faint signs ? I could easily cite a great
many instances of this kind. From what vague signs, for in-
stance, do the young gentlemen of this audience conclude that
they have won the favor of a lady? Do you await an explicit
declaration, an ardent embrace, or does not a glance, scarcely
perceptible to others, a fleeting gesture, the prolonging of a

1 ' ' Fehl-leistungen. ' '

12 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

hand-shake by one second, suffice? And if you are a criminal
lawyer, and engaged in the investigation of a murder, do you
actually expect the murderer to leave his photograph and address
on the scene of the crime, or would you, of necessity, content
yourself with fainter and less certain traces of that individual ?
Therefore, let us not undervalue small signs ; perhaps by means
of them we will succeed in getting on the track of greater things.
I agree with you that the larger problems of the world and of
science have the first claim on our interest. But it is generally
of little avail to form the definite resolution to devote oneself to
the investigation of this or that problem. Often one does not
know in which direction to take the next step. In scientific
research it is more fruitful to attempt what happens to be before
one at the moment and for whose investigation there is a dis-
coverable method. If one does that thoroughly without prejudice
or predisposition, one may, with good fortune, and by virtue
of the connection which links each thing to every other (hence
also the small to the great) discover even from such modest
research a point of approach to the study of the big problems."

Thus would I answer, in order to secure your attention for
the consideration of these apparently insignificant errors made
by normal people. At this point, we will question a stranger to
psychoanalysis and ask him how he explains these occurrences.

His first answer is sure to be, "Oh, they are not worth an
explanation; they are merely slight accidents." What does he
mean by this? Does he mean to assert that there are any
occurrences so insignificant that they fall out of the causal
sequence of things, or that they might just as well be something
different from what they are ? If anv one thus denies the deter-
mination of natural phenomena at one bach point, he has vitiated
the entire scientific viewpoint. One can then point out to him
how much more consistent is the religious point of view, when
it explicitly asserts that "No sparrow falls from the roof
without God's special wish." I imagine our friend will not be
willing to follow his first answer to its logical conclusion; he
will interrupt and say that if he were to study these things
he would probably find an explanation for them. He will say
that this is a case of slight functional disturbance, of an in-
accurate psychic act whose causal factors can be outlined. A man
who otherwise speaks correctly may make a slip of the tongue— •

The Psychology of Errors 13

when he is slightly ill or fatigued; when he is excited;
when his attention is concentrated on something else. It is
easy to prove these statements. Slips of the tongue do really
occur with special frequency when one is tired, when one has
a headache or when one is indisposed. Forgetting proper names
is a very frequent occurrence under these circumstances. Many
persons even recognize the imminence of an indisposition by the
inability to recall proper names. Often also one mixes up words
or objects during excitement, one picks up the wrong things;
and the forgetting of projects, as well as the doing of any num-
ber of other unintentional acts, becomes conspicuous when one
is distracted; in other words, when one's attention is concen-
trated on other things. A familiar instance of such distraction
is the professor in Fliegende Blatter, who takes the wrong hat
because he is thinking of the problems which he wishes to treat
in his next book. Each of us knows from experience some ex-
amples of how one can forget projects which one has planned
and promises which one has made, because an experience has
intervened which has preoccupied one deeply.

This seems both comprehensible and irrefutable. It is perhaps
not very interesting, not as we expected it to be. But let us
consider this explanation of errors. The conditions which have
been cited as necessary for the occurrence of these phenomena
are not all identical. Illness and disorders of circulation afford
a physiological basis. Excitement, fatigue and distraction are
conditions of a different sort, which one could designate as
psycho-physiological. About these latter it is easy to theorize.
Fatigue, as well as distraction, and perhaps also general excite-
ment, cause a scattering of the attention which can result in the
act in progress not receiving sufficient attention. This act can
then be more easily interrupted than usual, and may be in-
exactly carried out. A slight illness, or a change in the distribu-
tion of blood in the central organ of the nervous system, can have
the same effect, inasmuch as it influences the determining factor,
the distribution of attention, in a similar way. In all cases,
therefore, it is a question of the effects of a distraction of the
attention, caused either by organic or psychic factors.

But this does not seem to yield much of interest for our
psychoanalytic investigation. "We might even feel tempted to
give up the subject. To be sure, when we look more closely we

14 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

find that not everything squares with this attention theory of
psychological errors, or that at any rate not everything can be
directly deduced from it. We find that such errors and such
forgetting occur even when people are not fatigued, distracted
or excited, but are in every way in their normal state; unless,
in consequence of these errors, one were to attribute to them
an excitement which they themselves do not acknowledge. Nor
is the mechanism so simple that the success of an act is assured
by an intensification of the attention bestowed upon it, and
endangered by its diminution. There are many acts which one
performs in a purely automatic way and with very little atten-
tion, but which are yet carried out quite successfully. The
pedestrian who scarcely knows where he is going, nevertheless
keeps to the right road and stops at his destination without hav-
ing gone astray. At least, this is the rule. The practiced
pianist touches the right keys without thinking of them. He
may, of course, also make an occasional mistake, but if auto-
matic playing increased the likelihood of errors, it would be
just the virtuoso whose playing has, through practice, become
most automatic, who would be the most exposed to this danger.
Yet we see, on the contrary, that many acts are most successfully
carried out when they are not the objects of particularly con-
centrated attention, and that the mistakes occur just at the
point where one is most anxious to be accurate — where a dis-
traction of the necessary attention is therefore surely least
permissible. One could then say that this is the effect of the
"excitement," but we do not understand why the excitement
does not intensify the concentration of attention on the goal
that is so much desired. If in an important speech or discus-
sion anyone says the opposite of what he means, then that can
hardly be explained according to the psycho-physiological or the
attention theories.

There are also many other small phenomena accompanying
these errors, which are not understood and which have not been
rendered comprehensible to us by these explanations. For in-
stance, when one has temporarily forgotten a name, one is
annoyed, one is determined to recall it and is unable to give up
the attempt. Why is it that despite his annoyance the indi-
vidual cannot succeed, as he wishes, in directing his attention
to the word which is "on the tip of his tongue," and which he

The Psychology of Errors 15

instantly recognizes when it is pronounced to him? Or, to
take another example, there are cases in which the errors mul-
tiply, link themselves together, substitute for each other. The
first time one forgets an appointment ; the next time, after having
made a special resolution not to forget it, one discovers that one
has made a mistake in the day or hour. Or one tries by devious
means to remember a forgotten word, and in the course of so
doing loses track of a second name which would have been of
use in finding the first. If one then pursues this second name,
a third gets lost, and so on. It is notorious that the same thing
can happen in the case of misprints, which are of ocurse to be
considered as errors of the typesetter. A stubborn error of this
sort is said to have crept into a Social-Democratic paper, where,
in the account of a certain festivity was printed, ' ' Among those
present was His Highness, the Clown Prince." The next day
a correction was attempted. The paper apologized and said,
' ' The sentence should, of course, have read ' The Clown Prince. ' ' '
One likes to attribute these occurrences to the printer's devil,
to the goblin of the typesetting machine, and the like — figura-
tive expressions which at least go beyond a psycho-physiological
theory of the misprint.

I do not know if you are acquainted with the fact that one
can provoke slips of the tongue, can call them forth by sugges-
tion, as it were. An anecdote will serve to illustrate this. Once
when a novice on the stage was entrusted with the important
role in The Maid of Orleans of announcing to the King, ' ' Conne-
table sheathes his sword," the star played the joke of repeating
to the frightened beginner during the rehearsal, instead of the
text, the following, "Comfortable sends back his steed,"2 and
he attained his end. In the performance the unfortunate actor
actually made his debut with this distorted announcement ; even
after he had been amply warned against so doing, or perhaps
just for that reason.

These little characteristics of errors are not exactly illuminated
by the theory of diverted attention. But that does not neces-
sarily prove the whole theory wrong. There is perhaps some-
thing missing, a complement by the addition of which the theory

*In the German, the correct announcement is, " Connetable schickt sein
Bchwert zuriick. " The novice, as a result of the suggestion, announced
instead that " Komfortabel schickt sein Pferd zuriick."

16 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

would be made completely satisfactory. But many of the errors
themselves can be regarded from another aspect.

Let us select slips of the tongue, as best suited to our purposes.
We might equally well choose slips of the pen or of reading.
But at this point, we must make clear to ourselves the fact that
so far we have inquired only as to when and under what con-
ditions one's tongue slips, and have received an answer on this
point only. One can, however, direct one's interest elsewhere
and ask why one makes just this particular slip and no other;
one can consider what the slip results in. You must realize that
as long as one does not answer this question— does not explain
the effect produced by the slip — the phenomenon in its psycho-
logical aspect remains an accident, even if its physiological ex-
planation has been found. When it happens that I commit a
slip of the tongue, I could obviously make any one of an in-
finite number of slips, and in place of the one right word say
any one of a thousand others, make innumerable distortions of
the right word. Now, is there anything which forces upon me in
a specific instance just this one special slip out of all those
which are possible, or does that remain accidental and arbitrary,
and can nothing rational be found in answer to this question ?

Two authors, Meringer and Mayer (a philologist and a psychi-
atrist) did indeed in 1895 make the attempt to approach the
problem of slips of the tongue from this side. They collected
examples and first treated them from a purely descriptive stand-
point. That, of course, does not yet furnish any explanation, but
may open the way to one. They differentiated the distortions
which the intended phrase suffered through the slip, into : inter-
changes of positions of words, interchanges of parts of words,
perseverations, compoundings and substitutions. I will give
you examples of these authors' main categories. It is a case of
interchange of the first sort if someone says "the Milo of Venus"
instead of "the Venus of Milo." An example of the second
type of interchange, "I had a blush of rood to the head" instead
of * ' rush of blood " ; a perseveration would be the familiar mis-
placed toast, "I ask you to join me in hiccoughing the health
of our chief."8 These three forms of slips are not very frequent.
You will find those cases much more frequent in which the slip
results from a drawing together or compounding of syllables;
*" Auf stossen " instead of ' ' anstossen. "

The Psychology of Errors 17

for example, a gentleman on the street addresses a lady with
the words, "If you will allow me, madame, I should be very
glad to inscort you."4 In the compounded word there is ob-
viously besides the word "escort," also the word "insult" (and
parenthetically we may remark that the young man will not find
much favor with the lady). As an example of the substitution,
Meringer and Mayer cite the following: "A man says, 'I put
the specimens in the letterbox,' instead of 'in the hot-bed,' and
the like."5

The explanation which the two authors attempt to formulate
on the basis of this collection of examples is peculiarly inade-
quate. They hold that the sounds and syllables of words have
different values, and that the production and perception of
more highly valued syllables can interfere with those of lower
values. They obviously base this conclusion on the cases of fore-
sounding and perseveration which are not at all frequent; in
other cases of slips of the tongue the question of such sound
priorities, if any exist, does not enter at all. The most frequent
cases of slips of the tongue are those in which instead of a cer-
tain word one says another which resembles it; and one may
consider this resemblance sufficient explanation. For example,
a professor says in his initial lecture, "I am not inclined to
evaluate the merits of my predecessor. ' '6 Or another professor
says, "In the case of the female genital, despite many tempta-
tions . . . I mean many attempts . . . etc."7

The most common, and also the most conspicuous form of
Blips of the tongue, however, is that of saying the exact opposite
of what one meant to say. In such cases, one goes far afield
from the problem of sound relations and resemblance effects,
and can cite, instead of these, the fact that opposites have an
obviously close relationship to each other, and have particularly
close relations in the psychology of association. There are his-
torical examples of this sort. A president of our House of Rep-
resentatives once opened the assembly with the words, "Gentle-
men, I declare a quorum present, and herewith declare the
assembly closed."

** ' Begleit-digen " compounded of "begleiten" and ' ' beleidigen. "

•"Briefkasten" instead of ' ' Briitkasten. ' '

°" Geneigt " instead of " geeignet."

f ' ' Versuchungen ' ' instead of ' ' Versuche. ' '

28 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Similar, in its trickiness, to the relation of opposates is the
effect of any other facile association which may under certain
circumstances arise most inopportunely. Thus, for instance,
there is the story which relates that on the occasion of a festivity
in honor of the marriage of a child of H. Helmholtz with a
child of the well-known discoverer and captain of industry,
W. Siemon, the famous physiologist Dubois-Reymond was asked
to speak. He concluded his undoubtedly sparkling toast with
the words, "Success to the new firm — Siemens and — Halski!"
That, of course, was the name of the well-known old firm. The
association of the two names must have been about as easy for
a native of Berlin as "Weber and Fields" to an American.

Thus we must add to the sound relations and word resem-
blances the influence of word associations. But that is not all.
In a series of cases, an explanation of the observed slip is un-
successful unless we take into account what phrase had been
said or even thought previously. This again makes it a case of
perseveration of the sort stressed by Meringer, but of a longer
duration. I must admit, I am on the whole of the impression
that we are further than ever from an explanation of slips of
the tongue !

However, I hope I am not wrong when I say that during the
above investigation of these examples of slips of the tongue, we
have all obtained a new impression on which it will be of value
to dwell. We sought the general conditions under which slips
of the tongue occur, and then the influences which determine
the kind of distortion resulting from the slip, but we have in
no way yet considered the effect of the slip of the tongue in
itself, without regard to its origin. And if we should decide
to do so we must finally have the courage to assert, "In some
of the examples cited, the product of the slip also makes sense."
What do we mean by "it makes sense"? It means, I think, that
the product of the slip has itself a right to be considered as a
valid psychic act which also has its purpose, as a manifestation
having content and meaning. Hitherto we have always spoken
of errors, but now it seems as if sometimes the error itself were
quite a normal act, except that it has thrust itself into the place
of some other expected or intended act.

In isolated cases this valid meaning seems obvious and unmis-
takable. When the president with his opening words closes the

The Psychology of Errors 19

session of the House of Representatives, instead of opening it, we
are inclined to consider this error meaningful by reason of our
knowledge of the circumstances under which the slip occurred.
He expects no good of the assembly, and would be glad if he
could terminate it immediately. The pointing out of this mean-
ing, the interpretation of this error, gives us no difficulty. Or a
lady, pretending to admire, says to another, "I am sure you
must have messed up this charming hat yourself. ' '8 No scientific
quibbles in the world can keep us from discovering in this slip
the idea "this hat is a mess." Or a lady who is known for her
energetic disposition, relates, "My husband asked the doctor to
what diet he should keep. But the doctor said he didn't need any
diet, he should eat and drink whatever I want." This slip of
tongue is quite an unmistakable expression of a consistent
purpose.

Ladies and gentlemen, if it should turn out that not only a
few cases of slips of the tongue and of errors in general, but
the larger part of them, have a meaning, then this meaning of
errors of which we have hitherto made no mention, will un-
avoidably become of the greatest interest to us and will, with
justice, force all other points of view into the background. We
could then ignore all physiological and psycho-physiological con-
ditions and devote ourselves to the purely psychological investi-
gations of the sense, that is, the meaning, the purpose of these
errors. To this end therefore we will not fail, shortly, to study
a more extensive compilation of material.

But before we undertake this task, I should like to invite you
to follow another line of thought with me. It has repeatedly
happened that a poet has made use of slips of the tongue or
Borne other error as a means of poetic presentation. This fact
in itself must prove to us that he considers the error, the slip
of the tongue for instance, as meaningful ; for he creates it on
purpose, and it is not a case of the poet committing an acci-
dental slip of the pen and then letting his pen-slip stand as a
tongue-slip of his character. He wants to make something clear
to us by this slip of the tongue, and we may examine what it is,
whether he wishes to indicate by this that the person in question
is distracted or fatigued. Of course, we do not wish to exagger-
ate the importance of the fact that the poet did makft use of

•" Aufgepatzt " instead of " auf geput-tt. "

20 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

a slip to express his meaning. It could nevertheless really be a
psychic accident, or meaningful only in very rare cases, and
the poet would still retain the right to infuse it with meaning
through his setting. As to their poetic use, however, it would
not be surprising if we should glean more information concern-
ing slips of the tongue from the poet than from the philologist
or the psychiatrist.

Such an example of a slip of the tongue occurs in Wallenstein
(Piccolomini, Act 1, Scene 5). In the previous scene, Max Pic-
colomini has most passionately sided with the Herzog, and dilated
ardently on the blessings of peace which disclosed themselves
to him during the trip on which he accompanied Wallenstein 's
daughter to the camp. He leaves his father and the courtier,
Questenberg, plunged in deepest consternation. And then the
fifth scene continues:

Q.

Alas ! Alas ! and stands it so ?
What friend ! and do we let him go away
In this delusion — let him go away ?
Not call him back immediately, not open
His eyes upon the spot ?

OCTAVIO.

(Recovering himself out of a deep study)
He has now opened mine,
And I see more than pleases me.

Q.

What is it?

OCTAVIO.

A curse on this journey !

Q.

But why so ? What is it?

OCTAVIO.

Come, come along, friend ! I must follow up
The ominous track immediately. Mine eyes
Are opened now, and I must use them. Come!
(Draws Q. on with him.}

Q.

What now ? Where go you then ?

The Psychology of Errors 21

OCTAVIO.

(Hastily.') To her herself

Q.

To—

OCTAVIO.

(Interrupting him and correcting himself.)
To the duke. Come, let us go — .

Octavio meant to say, "To him, to the lord," but his tongue
Blips and through his words "to her" he betrays to us, at least,
the fact that he had quite clearly recognized the influence which
makes the young war hero dream of peace.

A still more impressive example was found by O. Rank in
Shakespeare. It occurs in the Merchant of Venice, in the famous
scene in- which the fortunate suitor makes his choice among the
three caskets ; and perhaps I can do no better than to read to you
here Bank 's short account of the incident :

"A slip of the tongue which occurs in Shakespeare's Merchant
of Venice, Act III, Scene II, is exceedingly delicate in its poetic
motivation and technically brilliant in its handling. Like the
slip in Wallenstein quoted by Freud (Psychopathology of
Everyday Life, 2d ed., p. 48), it shows that the poets well
know the meaning of these errors and assume their compre-
hensibility to the audience. Portia, who by her father's wish
has been bound to the choice of a husband by lot, has so far
escaped all her unfavored suitors through the fortunes of chance.
Since she has finally found in Bassanio the suitor to whom she
is attached, she fears that he, too, will choose the wrong casket.
She would like to tell him that even in that event he may rest
assured of her love, but is prevented from so doing by her oath.
In this inner conflict the poet makes her say to the welcome
suitor :

PORTIA :

I pray you tarry ; pause a day or two,

Before you hazard ; for, in choosing wrong

I lose your company ; therefore, forbear a while :

There's something tells me, (but it is not love)

I would not lose you : * * *

* * * I could teach you

How to choose right, but then I am forsworn,

22 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

So will I never be : so may you miss me ;
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes.
They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
Mine own, I would say : but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours.

Just that, therefore, which she meant merely to indicate faintly
to him or really to conceal from him entirely, namely that even
before the choice of the lot she was his and loved him, this the
poet — with admirable psychological delicacy of feeling — makes
apparent by her slip ; and is able, by this artistic device, to quiet
the unbearable uncertainty of the lover, as well as the equal sus-
pense of the audience as to the issue of the choice."

Notice, at the end, how subtly Portia reconciles the two decla-
rations which are contained in the slip, how she resolves the
contradiction between them and finally still manages to keep her
promise :

«* * * |DU^ ^ mine, then yours,
And so all yours."

Another thinker, alien to the field of medicine, accidentally
disclosed the meaning of errors by an observation which has
anticipated our attempts at explanation. You all know the clever
satires of Lichtenberg (1742-1749), of which Goethe said, " Where
he jokes, there lurks a problem concealed." Not infrequently
the joke also brings to light the solution of the problem. Lichten-
berg mentions in his jokes and satiric comments the remark that
he always read "Agamemnon" for "angenomen,"9 so intently
had he read Homer. Herein is really contained the whole theory
of misreadings.

At the next session we will see whether we can agree with the
poets in their conception of the meaning of psychological errors.

•" Angenomen " is a verb, meaning " to accept."

THIRD LECTURE

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS — (Continued)

AT the last session we conceived the idea of considering
the error, not in its relation to the intended act which
it distorted, but by itself alone, and we received the
impression that in isolated instances it seems to betray
a meaning of its own. We declared that if this fact could be
established on a larger scale, then the meaning of the error itself
would soon come to interest us more than an investigation of the
circumstances under which the error occurs.

Let us agree once more on what we understand by the "mean-
ing" of a psychic process. A psychic process is nothing more
than the purpose which it serves and the position which it holds
in a psychic sequence. We can also substitute the word "pur-
pose" or "intention" for "meaning" in most of our investiga-
tions. Was it then only a deceptive appearance or a poetic
exaggeration of the importance of an error which made us believe
that we recognized a purpose in it ?

Let us adhere faithfully to the illustrative example of slips
of the tongue and let us examine a larger number of such ob-
servations. We then find whole categories of cases in which the
intention, the meaning of the slip itself, is clearly manifest. This
is the case above all in those examples in which one says the
opposite of what one intended. The president said, in his open-
ing address, "I declare the meeting closed." His intention is
certainly not ambiguous. The meaning and purpose of his slip
is that he wants to terminate the meeting. One might point the
conclusion with the remark "he said so himself." We have only
taken him at his word. Do not interrupt me at this point by
remarking that this is not possible, that we know he did not want
to terminate the meeting but to open it, and that he himself,
whom we have just recognized as the best judge of his intention,
will affirm that he meant to open it. In so doing you forget that
we have agreed to consider the error entirely by itself. Its rela-

23

24 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

tion to the intention which it distorts is to be discussed later.
Otherwise you convict yourself of an error in logic by which
you smoothly conjure away the problem under discussion; or
"beg the question," as it is called in English.

In other cases in which the speaker has not said the exact
opposite of what he intended, the slip may nevertheless express
an antithetical meaning. "I am not inclined to appreciate the
merits of my predecessor." "Inclined" is not the opposite of
"in a position to/' but it is an open betrayal of intent in sharpest
contradiction to the attempt to cope gracefully with the situa-
tion which the speaker is supposed to meet.

In still other cases the slip simply adds a second meaning to
the one intended. The sentence then sounds like a contradiction,
an abbreviation, a condensation of several sentences. Thus the
lady of energetic disposition, "He may eat and drink whatever
7 please." The real meaning of this abbreviation is as though
the lady had said, ' ' He may eat and drink whatever he pleases.
But what does it matter what he pleases! It is / who do the
pleasing. ' ' Slips of the tongue often give the impression of such
an abbreviation. For example, the anatomy professor, after his
lecture on the human nostril, asks whether the class has thor-
oughly understood, and after a unanimous answer in the affirma-
tive, goes on to say: "I can hardly believe that is so, since the
people who understand the human nostril can, even in a city
of millions, be counted on one finger — I mean, on the fingers of
one hand." The abbreviated sentence here also has its meaning :
it expresses the idea that there is only one person who thoroughly
understands the subject.

In contrast to these groups of cases are those in which the
error does not itself express its meaning, in which the slip of
the tongue does not in itself convey anything intelligible ; cases,
therefore, which are in sharpest opposition to our expectations.
If anyone, through a slip of the tongue, distorts a proper name,
or puts together an unusual combination of syllables, then this
very common occurrence seems already to have decided in the
negative the question of whether all errors contain a meaning.
Yet closer inspection of these examples discloses the fact that
an understanding of such a distortion is easily possible, indeed,
that the difference between these unintelligible cases and the
previous comprehensible ones is not so very great.

The Psychology of Errors 25

A man who was asked how his horse was, answered, "Oh, it
may stake — it may take another month." When asked what
he really meant to say, he explained that he had been thinking
that it was a sorry business and the coming together of "take"
and "sorry" gave rise to "stake." (Meringer and Mayer.)

Another man was telling of some incidents to which he had
objected, and went on, "and then certain facts were re- filed."
Upon being questioned, he explained that he meant to stigmatize
these facts as "filthy." "Revealed" and "filthy" together pro*
duced the peculiar "re-filled." (Meringer and Mayer.)

You will recall the case of the young man who wished to
"inscort" an unknown lady. We took the liberty of resolving
this word construction into the two words "escort" and "in-
sult," and felt convinced of this interpretation without demand-
ing proof of it. You see from these examples that even slips
can be explained through the concurrence, the interference, of
two speeches of different intentions. The difference arises only
from the fact that in the one type of slip the intended speech
completely crowds out the other, as happens in those slips where
the opposite is said, while in the other type the intended speech
must rest content with so distorting or modifying the other as to
result in mixtures which seem more or less intelligible in them-
selves.

We believe that we have now grasped the secret of a large
number of slips of the tongue. If we keep this explanation in
mind we will be able to understand still other hitherto mysteri-
ous groups. In the case of the distortion of names, for instance,
we cannot assume that it is always an instance of competition
between two similar, yet different names. Still, the second in-
tention is not difficult to guess. The distorting of names occurs
frequently enough not as a slip of the tongue, but as an attempt
to give the name an ill-sounding or debasing character. It is
a familiar device or trick of insult, which persons of culture
early learned to do without, though they do not give it up
readily. They often clothe it in the form of a joke, though, to
be sure, the joke is of a very low order. Just to cite a gross
and ugly example of such a distortion of a name, I mention
the fact that the name of the President of the French Repub-
lic, Poincare, has been at times, lately, transformed into
" Schweinskarre." It is therefore easy to assume that there is

26 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

also such an intention to insult in the case of other slips of the
tongue which result in the distortion of a name. In consequence
of our adherence to this conception, similar explanations force
themselves upon us, in the case of slips of the tongue whose
effect is comical or absurd. "I call upon you to hiccough the
health of our chief."1 Here the solemn atmosphere is unex-
pectedly disturbed by the introduction of a word that awakens
an unpleasant image; and from the prototype of certain ex-
pressions of insult and offense we cannot but suppose that there
is an intention striving for expression which is in sharp contrast
to the ostensible respect, and which could be expressed about
as follows, ' ' You needn 't believe this. I 'm not really in earnest.
I don't give a whoop for the fellow— etc." A similar trick
which passes for a slip of the tongue is that which transforms
a harmless word into one which is indecent and obscene.2

We know that many persons have this tendency of intention-
ally making harmless words obscene for the sake of a certain
lascivious pleasure it gives them. It passes as wit, and we
always have to ask about a person of whom we hear such a
thing, whether he intended it as a joke or whether it occurred
as a slip of the tongue.

Well, here we have solved the riddle of errors with relatively
little trouble! They are not accidents, but valid psychic acts.
They have their meaning ; they arise through the collaboration —
or better, the mutual interference — of two different intentions.
I can well understand that at this point you want to swamp
me with a deluge of questions and doubts to be answered and
resolved before we can rejoice over this first result of our labors.
I truly do not wish to push you to premature conclusions. Let
us dispassionately weigh each thing in turn, one after the other.

What would you like to say ? Whether I think this explana-
tion is valid for all cases of slips of the tongue or only for a
certain number? Whether one can extend this same conception
to all the many other errors — to mis-reading, slips of the pen,
forgetting, picking up the wrong object, mislaying things, etc?
In the face of the psychic nature of errors, what meaning is left
to the factors of fatigue, excitement, absent-mindedness and

1 The young man here said ' ' auf zustossen ' ' instead of ' ' anzustossen. ' '
* Prof. Freud here gives the two examples, quite untranslatable, of

" apopos " instead of " apropos," and " eiseheiszweibchen " instead of

" e iwe iszscheibchen. "

The Psychology of Errors 27

distraction of attention ? Moreover, it is easy to see that of the
two competing meanings in an error, one is always public, but
the other not always. But what does one do in order to guess
the latter ? And when one believes one has guessed it, how does
one go about proving that it is not merely a probable meaning,
but that it is the only correct meaning? Is there anything
else you wish to ask? If not, then I will continue. I would
remind you of the fact that we really are not much concerned
with the errors themselves, but we wanted only to learn some-
thing of value to psychoanalysis from their study. Therefore,
I put the question : What are these purposes or tendencies which
can thus interfere with others, and what relation is there be-
tween the interfering tendencies and those interfered with?
Thus our labor really begins anew, after the explanation of the
problem.

Now, is this the explanation of all tongue slips? I am very
much inclined to think so and for this reason, that as often as
one investigates a case of a slip of the tongue, it reduces itself
to this type of explanation. But on the other hand, one cannot
prove that a slip of the tongue cannot occur without this
mechanism. It may be so; for our purposes it is a matter of
theoretical indifference, since the conclusions which we wish to
draw by way of an introduction to psychoanalysis remain un-
touched, even if only a minority of the cases of tongue slips come
within our conception, which is surely not the case. I shall
anticipate the next question, of whether or not we may extend
to other types of errors what we have gleaned from slips of
the tongue, and answer it in the affirmative. You will convince
yourselves of that conclusion when we turn our attention to the
investigation of examples of pen slips, picking up wrong objects,
etc. I would advise you, however, for technical reasons, to
postpone this task until we shall have investigated the tongue
slip itself more thoroughly.

The question of what meaning those factors which have been
placed in the foreground by some authors, — namely, the factors
of circulatory disturbances, fatigue, excitement, absent-minded-
ness, the theory of the distraction of attention — the question of
what meaning those factors can now have for us if we accept the
above described psychic mechanism of tongue slips, deserves a
more detailed answer. You will note that we do not deny these

28 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

factors. In fact, it is not very often that psychoanalysis denies
anything which is asserted on the other side. As a rule psycho-
analysis merely adds something to such assertions and occasion-
ally it does happen that what had hitherto been overlooked,
and was newly added by psychoanalysis, is just the essential
thing. The influence on the occurrence of tongue slips of such
physiological predispositions as result from slight illness, cir-
culatory disturbances and conditions of fatigue, should be
acknowledged without more ado. Daily personal experience
can convince you of that. But how little is explained by such
an admission! Above all, they are not necessary conditions of
the errors. Slips of the tongue are just as possible when one is
in perfect health and normal condition. Bodily factors, there-
fore, have only the value of acting by way of facilitation and
encouragement to the peculiar psychic mechanism of a slip of
the tongue.

To illustrate this relationship, I once used a simile which I will
now repeat because I know of no better one as substitute. Let
us suppose that some dark night I go past a lonely spot and
am there assaulted by a rascal who takes my watch and purse;
and then, since I did not see the face of the robber clearly, I
make my complaint at the nearest police station in the following
words: ''Loneliness and darkness have just robbed me of my
valuables." The police commissioner could then say to me:
"You seem to hold an unjustifiably extreme mechanistic con-
ception. Let us rather state the case as follows : Under cover
of darkness, and favored by the loneliness, an unknown robber
seized your valuables. The essential task in your case seems
to me to be to discover the robber. Perhaps we can then take
his booty from him again."

Such psycho-physiological moments as excitement, absent-
mindedness and distracted attention, are obviously of small as-
sistance to us for the purpose of explanation. They are mere
phrases, screens behind which we will not be deterred from
looking. The question is rather what in such cases has caused
the excitement, the particular diversion of attention. The
influence of syllable sounds, word resemblances and the custom-
ary associations which words arouse should also be recognized
as having significance. They facilitate the tongue slip by point-
ing the path which it can take. But if I have a path before

The Psychology of Errors 29

me, does that fact as a matter of course determine that I will
follow it ? After all, I must have a stimulus to make me decide
for it, and, in addition, a force which carries me forward on
this path. These sound and word relationships therefore serve
also only to facilitate the tongue slip, just as the bodily dis-
positions facilitate them; they cannot give the explanation for
the word itself. Just consider, for example, the fact that in an
enormously large number of cases, my lecturing is not disturbed
by the fact that the words which I use recall others by their
sound resemblance, that they are intimately associated with their
opposites, or arouse common associations. We might add here
the observation of the philosopher Wundt, that slips of the
tongue occur when, in consequence of bodily fatigue, the ten-
dency to association gains the upper hand over the intended
speech. This would sound very plausible if it were not con-
tradicted by experiences which proved that from one series of
cases of tongue-slips bodily stimuli were absent, and from
another, the association stimuli were absent.

However, your next question is one of particular interest to
me, namely : in what way can one establish the existence of the
two mutually antagonistic tendencies? You probably do not
suspect how significant this question is. It is true, is it not, that
one of the two tendencies, the tendency which suffers the inter-
ference, is always unmistakable? The person who commits the
error is aware of it and acknowledges it. It is the other ten-
dency, what we call the interfering tendency, which causes
doubt and hesitation. Now we have already learned, and you
have surely not forgotten, that these tendencies are, in a series
of cases, equally plain. That is indicated by the effect of the
slip, if only we have the courage to let this effect be valid in
itself. The president who said the opposite of what he meant
to say made it clear that he wanted to open the meeting, but
equally clear that he would also have liked to terminate it.
Here the meaning is so plain that there is nothing left to be
interpreted. But the other cases in which the interfering ten-
dency merely distorts the original, without bringing itself to
full expression — how can one guess the interfering meaning
from the distortion ?

By a very sure and simple method, in the first series of cases,
namely, by the same method by which one establishes the

30 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

existence of the meaning interfered with. The latter is immedi-
ately supplied by the speaker, who instantly adds the originally
intended expression. "It may stake — no, it may take another
month." Now we likewise ask him to express the interfering
meaning; we ask him: "Now, why did you first say staked"
He answers, ' ' I meant to say — ' This is a sorry business. ' ' ' And
in the other case of the tongue slip — re- filed — the subject also
affirms that he meant to say "It is a fil-thy business," but then
moderated his expression and turned it into something else.
Thus the discovery of the interfering meaning was here as suc-
cessful as the discovery of the one interfered with. Nor did I
unintentionally select as examples cases which were neither re-
lated nor explained by me or by a supporter of my theories.
Yet a certain investigation was necessary in both cases in order
to obtain the solution. One had to ask the speaker why he made
this slip, what he had to say about it. Otherwise he might per-
haps have passed it by without seeking to explain it. When
questioned, however, he furnished the explanation by means of
the first thing that came to his mind. And now you see, ladies
and gentlemen, that this slight investigation and its consequence
are already a psychoanalysis, and the prototype of every
psychoanalytic investigation which we shall conduct more ex-
tensively at a later time.

Now, am I unduly suspicious if I suspect that at the same
moment in which psychoanalysis emerges before you, your re-
sistence to psychoanalysis also raises its head? Are you not
anxious to raise the objection that the information given by the
subject we questioned, and who committed the slip, is not proof
sufficient? He naturally has the desire, you say, to meet the
challenge, to explain the slip, and hence he says the first thing
he can think of if it seems relevant. But that, you say, is
no proof that this is really the way the slip happened. It might
be so, but it might just as well be otherwise, you say. Some-
thing else might have occurred to him which might have fitted
the case just as well and better.

It is remarkable how little respect, at bottom, you have for a
psychic fact! Imagine that someone has decided to undertake
the chemical analysis of a certain substance, and has secured a
sample of the substance, of a certain weight — so and so many

The Psychology of Errors 31

milligrams. From this weighed sample certain definite conclu-
sions can be drawn. Do you think it would ever occur to a
chemist to discredit these conclusions by the argument that the
isolated substance might have had some other weight? Every-
one yields to the fact that it was just this weight and no other,
and confidently builds his further conclusions upon that fact.
But when you are confronted by the psychic fact that the sub-
ject, when questioned, had a certain idea, you will not accept
that as valid, but say some other idea might just as easily have
occurred to him ! The trouble is that you believe in the illusion
of psychic freedom and will not give it up. I regret that on
this point I find myself in complete opposition to your views.

Now you will relinquish this point only to take up your re-
sistance at another place. You will continue, "We understand
that it is the peculiar technique of psychoanalysis that the solu-
tion of its problems is discovered by the analyzed subject him-
self. Let us take another example, that in which the speaker
calls upon the assembly 'to hiccough the health of their chief.'
The interfering idea in this case, you say, is the insult. It is
that which is the antagonist of the expression of conferring an
honor. But that is mere interpretation on your part, based on
observations extraneous to the slip. If in this case you question
the originator of the slip, he will not affirm that he intended an
insult, on the contrary, he will deny it energetically. Why do
you not give up your unverifiable interpretation in the face of
this plain objection?"

Yes, this time you struck a hard problem. I can imagine the
unknown speaker. He is probably an assistant to the guest of
honor, perhaps already a minor official, a young man with the
brightest prospects. I will press him as to whether he did not
after all feel conscious of something which may have worked
in opposition to the demand that he do honor to the chief. What
a fine success 111 have! He becomes impatient and suddenly
bursts out on me, "Look here, you'd better stop this cross-
examination, or I'll get unpleasant. Why, you'll spoil my whole
career with your suspicions. I simply said *aw/-gestossen' in-
stead of 'an-gestossen,' because I'd already said 'auf twice in
the same sentence. It's the thing that Meringer calls a per-
servation, and there's no other meaning that you can twist out
of it. Do you understand me? That's all." H'm, this is a

32 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

surprising reaction, a really energetic denial. I see that there
is nothing more to be obtained from the young man, but I also
remark to myself that he betrays a strong personal interest in
having his slip mean nothing. Perhaps you, too, agree that it
is not right for him immediately to become so rude over a purely
theoretical investigation, but, you will conclude, he really must
know what he did and did not mean to say.

Really? Perhaps that's open to question nevertheless.

But now you think you have me. ''So that is your tech-
nique," I hear you say. "When the person who has committed
a slip gives an explanation which fits your theory, then you
declare him the final authority on the subject. 'He says so him-
self ! ' But if what he says does not fit into your scheme, then
you suddenly assert that what he says does not count, that one
need not believe him. ' '

Yet that is certainly true. I can give you a similar case in
which the procedure is apparently just as monstrous. When a
defendant confesses to a deed, the judge believes his confession.
But if he denies it, the judge does not believe him. Were it
otherwise, there would be no way to administer the law, and
despite occasional miscarriages you must acknowledge the value
of this system.

Well, are you then the judge, and is the person who com-
mitted the slip a defendant before you ? Is a slip of the tongue
a crime ?

Perhaps we need not even decline this comparison. But just
see to what far-reaching differences we have come by penetrating
somewhat into the seemingly harmless problems of the psy-
chology of errors, differences which at this stage we do not at
all know how to reconcile. I offer you a preliminary compromise
on the basis of the analogy of the judge and the defendant. You
will grant me that the meaning of an error admits of no doubt
when the subject under analysis acknowledges it himself. I
in turn will admit that a direct proof for the suspected meaning
cannot be obtained if the subject denies us the information;
and, of course, that is also the case when the subject is not
present to give us the information. We are, then, as in the case
of the legal procedure, dependent on circumstances which make
a decision at one time seem more, and at another time, less
probable to us. At law, one has to declare a defendant guilty

The Psychology of Errors 33

on circumstantial evidence for practical reasons. We see no
such necessity; but neither are we forced to forego the use of
these circumstances. It would be a mistake to believe that a
science consists of nothing but conclusively proved theorems,
and any such demand would be unjust. Only a person with a
mania for authority, a person who must replace his religious
catechism w.ith some other, even though it be scientific, would
make such a demand. Science has but few apodeictic precepts
in its catechism; it consists chiefly of assertions which it has
developed to certain degrees of probability. It is actually a
symptom of scientific thinking if one is content with these
approximations of certainty and is able to carry on constructive
work despite the lack of the final confirmation.

But where do we get the facts for our interpretations, the
circumstances for our proof, when the further remarks of the
subject under analysis do not themselves elucidate the meaning
of the error? From many sources. First of all, from the
analogy with phenomena extraneous to the psychology of errors ;
as, for example, when we assert that the distortion of a name as
a slip of the tongue has the same insulting significance as an
intentional name distortion. We get them also from the psychic
situation' in which the error occurred, from our knowledge of
the character of the person who committed the error, from the
impressions which that person received before making the error,
and to which he may possibly have reacted with this error.
As a rule, what happens is that we find the meaning of the error
according to general principles. It is then only a conjecture,
a suggestion as to what the meaning may be, and we then obtain
our proof from examination of the psychic situation. Sometimes,
too, it happens that we have to wait for subsequent develop-
ments, which have announced themselves, as it were, through
the error, in order to find our conjecture verified .

I cannot easily give you proof of this if I have to limit myself
to the field of tongue slips, although even here there are a few
good examples. The young man who wished to "inscort" the
lady is certainly shy ; the lady whose husband may eat and drink
whatever she wants I know to be one of those energetic women
who know how to rule in the home. Or take the following case :
A.t a general meeting of the Concordia Club, a young member
delivers a vehement speech in opposition, in the course of which
he addresses the officers of the society as: "Fellow committee

34 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

lenders." We will conjecture that some conflicting idea mili-
tated in him against his opposition, an idea which was in some
way based on a connection with money lending. As a matter
of fact, we learn from our informant that the speaker was in
constant money difficulties, and had attempted to raise a loan.
As a conflicting idea, therefore, we may safely interpolate the
idea, "Be more moderate in your opposition, these are the same
people who are to grant you the loan. ' '

But I can give you a wide selection of such circumstantial
proof if I delve into the wide field of other kinds of error.

If anyone forgets an otherwise familiar proper name, or has
difficulty in retaining it in his memory despite all efforts, then
the conclusion lies close at hand, that he has something against
the bearer of this name and does not like to think of him. Con-
sider in this connection the following revelation of the psychic
situation in which this error occurs :

"A Mr. Y. fell in love, without reciprocation, with a lady
who soon after married a Mr. X. In spite of the fact that Mr.
Y. has known Mr. X. a long time, and even has business rela-
tions with him, he forgets his name over and over again, so that
he found it necessary on several occasions to ask other people
the man's name when he wanted to write to Mr. X."3

Mr. Y. obviously does not want to have his fortunate rival in
mind under any condition. "Let him never be thought of."

Another example: A lady makes inquiries at her doctor's
concerning a mutual acquaintance, but speaks of her by her
maiden name. She has forgotten her married name. She admits
that she was much displeased by the marriage, and could not
stand this friend's husband.4

Later we shall have much to say in other relations about the
matter of forgetting names. At present we are predominantly
interested in the psychic situation in which the lapse of memory
occurs.

The forgetting of projects can quite commonly be traced to
an antagonistic current which does not wish to carry out the
project. "We psychoanalysts are not alone in holding this view,
but this is the general conception to which all persons sub-
scribe the daily affairs, and which they first deny in theory.

* From C. G. Jung.
4 From A. A. Brill.

The Psychology of Errors 35

The patron who makes apologies to his protege, saying that he
has forgotten his requests, has not squared himself with his
protege. The protege immediately thinks: "There's nothing
to that; he did promise but he really doesn't want to do it."
Hence, daily life also proscribes forgetting, in certain connec-
tions, and the difference between the popular and the psycho-
analytic conception of these errors appears to be removed.
Imagine a housekeeper who receives her guest with the words:
"What, you come to-day? Why, I had totally forgotten that I
had invited you for to-day"; or the young man who might tell
his sweetheart that he had forgotten to keep the rendezvous
which they planned. He is sure not to admit it, it were better
for him to invent the most improbable excuses on the spur of the
moment, hindrances which prevented him from coming at that
time, and which made it impossible for him to communicate the
situation to her. We all know that in military matters the
excuse of having forgotten something is useless, that it protects
one from no punishment; and we must consider this attitude
justified. Here we suddenly find everyone agreed that a certain
error is significant, and everyone agrees what its meaning is.
Why are they not consistent enough to extend this insight to
the other errors, and fully to acknowledge them? Of course,
there is also an answer to this.

If the meaning of this forgetting of projects leaves room for
so little doubt among laymen, you will be less surprised to find
that poets make use of these errors in the same sense. Those
of you who have seen or read Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra
will recall that Caesar, when departing in the last scene, i»
pursued by the idea that there was something more he intended
to do, but that he had forgotten it. Finally he discovers what it
is : to take leave of Cleopatra. This small device of the author
is meant to ascribe to the great Caesar a superiority which he
did not possess, and to which he did not at all aspire. You can
learn from historical sources that Caesar had Cleopatra follow
him to Kome, and that she was staying there with her little
Caesarion when Caesar was murdered, whereupon she fled the
city.

The cases of forgetting projects are as a rule so clear that
they are of little use for our purpose, i.e., discovering in the
psychic situation circumstantial evidence of the meaning of

36 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the error. Let us, therefore, turn to a particularly ambiguous
and untransparent error, that of losing and mislaying objects.
That we ourselves should have a purpose in losing an object, an
accident frequently so painful, will certainly seem incredible
to you. But there are many instances similar to the following :
A young man loses the pencil which he had liked very much.
The day before he had received a letter from his brother-in-law,
which concluded with the words, ' ' For the present I have neither
the inclination nor the time to be a party to your frivolity and
your idleness."5 It so happened that the pencil had been a
present from this brother-in-law. Without this coincidence we
could not, of course, assert that the loss involved any intention
to get rid of the gift. Similar cases are numerous. Persons
lose objects when they have fallen out with the donors, and
no longer wish to be reminded of them. Or again, objects may be
lost if one no longer likes the things themselves, and wants to
supply oneself with a pretext for substituting other and better
things in their stead. Letting a thing fall and break naturally
shows the same intention toward that object. Can one consider
it accidental when a school child just before his birthday loses,
ruins or breaks his belongings, for example his school bag or
his watch ?

He who has frequently experienced the annoyance of not
being able to find something which he has himself put away,
will also be unwilling to believe there was any intent behind the
loss. And yet the examples are not at all rare in which the
attendant circumstances of the mislaying point to a tendency
temporarily or permanently to get rid of the object. Perhaps
the most beautiful example of this sort is the following: A
young man tells me : " A few years ago a misunderstanding arose
in my married life. I felt my wife was too cool and even though
1 willingly acknowledged her excellent qualities, we lived with-
out any tenderness between us. One day she brought me a book
which she had thought might interest me. I thanked her for
this attention, promised to read the book, put it in a handy
place, and couldn't find it again. Several months passed thus,
during which I occasionally remembered this mislaid book and
tried in vain to find it. About half a year later my beloved
mother, who lived at a distance from us, fell ill. My wife left

-FromB. Dattner.

The Psychology of Errors 37

the house in order to nurse her mother-in-law. The condition
of the patient became serious, and gave my wife an opportunity
of showing her best side. One evening I came home filled with
enthusiasm and gratitude toward my wife. I approached my
writing desk, opened a certain drawer with no definite intention
but as if with somnambulistic certainty, and the first thing I
found is the book so long mislaid."

With the cessation of the motive, the inability to find the
mislaid object also came to an end.

Ladies and gentlemen, I could increase this collection of ex-
amples indefinitely. But I do not wish to do so here. In my
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (first published in 1901),
you will find only too many instances for the study of errors.6

All these examples demonstrate the same thing repeatedly:
namely, they make it seem probable that errors have a meaning,
and show how one may guess or establish that meaning from
the attendant circumstances. I limit myself to-day because we
have confined ourselves to the purpose of profiting in the prepa-
ration for psychoanalysis from the study of these phenomena.
1 must, however, still go into two additional groups of observa-
tions, into the accumulated and combined errors and into the
confirmation of our interpretations by means of subsequent
developments.

The accumulated and combined errors are surely the fine
flower of their species. If we were interested only in proving
that errors may have a meaning, we would limit ourselves to the
accumulated and combined errors in the first place, for here
the meaning is unmistakable, even to the dullest intelligence,
and can force conviction upon the most critical judgment. The
accumulation of manifestations betrays a stubbornness such as
could never come about by accident, but which fits closely the
idea of design. Finally, the interchange of certain kinds of
error with each other shows us what is the important and es-
sential element of the error, not its form or the means of which
it avails itself, but the purpose which it serves and which is to be
achieved by the most various paths. Thus I will give you a case
of repeated forgetting. Jones recounts that he once allowed a
letter to lie on his writing desk several days for reasons quite

•So also in the writings of A. Maeder (French), A. A. Brill (English),
J. Starke (Dutch) and others.

38 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

unknown. Finally lie made up his mind to mail it; but it was
returned from the dead letter office, for he had forgotten to
address it. After he had addressed it he took it to the post
office, but this time without a stamp. At this point he finally
had to admit to himself his aversion against sending the letter
at all.

In another case a mistake is combined with mislaying an
object. A lady is traveling to Rome with her brother-in-law, a
famous artist. The visitor is much feted by the Germans living
in Rome, and receives as a gift, among other things, a gold medal
of ancient origin. The lady is vexed by the fact that her brother-
in-law does not sufficiently appreciate the beautiful object.
After she leaves her sister and reaches her home, she discovers
when unpacking that she has brought with her — how, she does
not know — the medal. She immediately informs her brother-
in-law of this fact by letter, and gives him notice that she will
send the medal back to Rome the next day. But on the follow-
ing day, the medal has been so cleverly mislaid that it can
neither be found nor sent, and at this point it begins to dawn
upon the lady that her "absent-mindedness" means, namely,
that she wants to keep the object for herself.7

I have already given you an example of a combination of
forgetfulness and error in which someone first forgot a rendez-
vous and then, with the firm intention of not forgetting it a
second time, appeared at the wrong hour. A quite analogous
case was told me from his own experience, by a friend who pur-
sues literary interests in addition to his scientific ones. He said :
"A few years ago I accepted the election to the board of a
certain literary society, because I hoped that the society could
at some time be of use to me in helping obtain the production
of my drama, and, despite my lack of interest, I took part in
the meetings every Friday. A few months ago I received the
assurance of a production in the theatre in F., and since that
time it happens regularly that I forget the meetings of that
society. When I read your article on these things, I was
ashamed of my forgetfulness, reproached myself with the mean-
ness of staying away now that I no longer need these people
and determined to be sure not to forget next Friday. I kept
reminding myself of this resolution until I carried it out and

TromE. Eeitler.

The Psychology of Errors 39

stood before the door of the meeting room. To my astonishment,
it was closed, the meeting was already over ; for I had mistaken
the day. It was already Saturday."

It would be tempting enough to collect similar observations,
but I will go no further; I will let you glance instead upon
those cases in which our interpretation has to wait for its proof
upon future developments.

The chief condition of these cases is conceivably that the ex-
isting psychic situation is unknown to us or inaccessible to our
inquiries. At that time our interpretation has only the value
of a conjecture to which we ourselves do not wish to grant too
much weight. Later, however, something happens which shows
us how justified was our interpretation even at that time. 1
was once the guest of a young married couple and heard the
young wife laughingly tell of a recent experience, of how on
the day after her return from her honeymoon she had hunted
up her unmarried sister again in order to go shopping with her,
as in former times, while her husband went to his business.
Suddenly she noticed a gentleman on the other side of the street,
and she nudged her sister, saying, "Why look, there goes Mr.
K." She had forgotten that this gentleman was her husband
of some weeks' standing. I shuddered at this tale but did not
dare to draw the inference. The little anecdote did not occur
to me again until a year later, after this marriage had come to a
most unhappy end.

A. Maeder tells of a lady who, the day before her wedding,
forgot to try on her wedding dress and to the despair of the
dressmaker only remembered it later in the evening. He adds
in connection with this forgetfulness the fact that she divorced
her husband soon after. I know a lady now divorced from her
husband, who, in managing her fortune, frequently signed docu-
ments with her maiden name, and this many years before she
really resumed it. I know of other women who lost their wed-
ding rings on their honeymoon and also know that the course
of the marriage gave a meaning to this accident. And now one
more striking example with a better termination. It is said that
the marriage of a famous German chemist did not take place
because he forgot the hour of the wedding, and instead of going
to the church went to the laboratory. He was wise enough to

40 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

rest satisfied with this one attempt, and died unmarried at a
ripe old age.

Perhaps the idea has also come to you that in these cases
mistakes have taken the place of the Ormna or omens of the
ancients. Some of the Omina really were nothing more than
mistakes; for example, when a person stumbled or fell down.
Others, to be sure, bore the characteristics of objective occur-
rences rather than that of subjective acts. But you would not
believe how difficult it sometimes is to decide in a specific in-
stance whether the act belongs to the one or the other group. It
so frequently knows how to masquerade as a passive experience.

Everyone of us who can look back over a longer or shorter
life experience will probably say that he might have spared him-
self many disappointments and painful surprises if he had found
the courage and decision to interpret as omens the little mistakes
which he made in his intercourse with people, and to consider
them as indications of the intentions which were still being kept
secret. As a rule, one does not dare do this. One would feel
as though he were again becoming superstitious via a detour
through science. But not all omens come true, and you will
understand from our theories that they need not all come true.

FOURTH LECTUKE

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ERRORS — (Conclusion)

WE may certainly put it down as the conclusion of
our labors up to this point that errors have a
meaning, and we may make this conclusion the
basis of our further investigations. Let me stress
the fact once more that we do not assert — and for our purposes
need not assert — that every single mistake which occurs is
meaningful, although I consider that probable. It will suffice
us if we prove the presence of such a meaning with relative
frequency in the various forms of errors. These various forms,
by the way, behave differently in this respect. In the cases of
tongue slips, pen slips, etc., the occurrences may take place on
a purely physiological basis. In the group based on forgetful-
ness (forgetting names or projects, mislaying objects, etc.)
I cannot believe in such a basis. There does very probably
exist a type of case in which the loss of objects should be
recognized as unintentional. Of the mistakes which occur in
daily life, only a certain portion can in any way be brought
within our conception. You must keep this limitation in mind
when we start henceforth from the assumption that mistakes
are psychic acts and arise through the mutual interference of
two intentions.

Herein we have the first result of psychoanalysis. Psychology
hitherto knew nothing of the occurrence of such interferences
and the possibility that they might have such manifestations as
a consequence. We have widened the province of the world of
psychic phenomena quite considerably, and have brought into
the province of psychology phenomena which formerly were
not attributed to it.

Let us tarry a moment longer over the assertion that errors
are psychic acts. Does such an assertion contain more than
the former declaration that they have a meaning? I do not
believe so. On the contrary, it is rather more indefinite and
open to greater misunderstanding. Everything which can be

41

42 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

observed about the psychic life will on occasion be designated
as a psychic phenomenon. But it will depend on whether the
specific psychic manifestations resulted directly from bodily,
organic, material influences, in which case their investigation
will not fall within the province of psychology, or whether it was
more immediately the result of other psychic occurrences back
cf which, somewhere, the series of organic influences then begins.
"We have the latter condition of affairs before us when we desig-
nate a phenomenon as a psychic manifestation, and for that
reason it is more expedient to put our assertion in this form:
the phenomena are meaningful; they have a meaning. By
"meaning" we understand significance, purpose, tendency and
position in a sequence of psychic relations.

There are a number of other occurrences which are very
closely related to errors, but which this particular name no
longer fits. We call them accidental and symptomatic acts.
They also have the appearance of being unmotivated, the appear-
ance of insignificance and unimportance, but in addition, and
more plainly, of superfluity. They are differentiated from errors
by the absence of another intention with which they collide and
by which they are disturbed. On the other side they pass over
without a definite boundary line into the gestures and move-
ments which we count among expressions of the emotions.
Among these accidental acts belong all those apparently playful,
apparently purposeless performances in connection with our
clothing, parts of our body, objects within reach, as well as the
omission of such performances, and the melodies which we hum
to ourselves. I venture the assertion that all these phenomena
are meaningful and capable of interpretation in the same way
as are the errors, that they are small manifestations of other
more important psychic processes, valid psychic acts. But I do
not intend to linger over this new enlargement of the province of
psychic phenomena, but rather to return to the topic of errors,
in the consideration of which the important psychoanalytic in-
quiries can be worked out with far greater clarity.

The most interesting questions which we formulated while
considering errors, and which we have not yet answered, are,
I presume, the following : We said that the errors are the result
of the mutual interference of two different intentions, of which
the one can be called the intention interfered with, and the

The Psychology of Errors 43

other the interfering intention. The intentions interfered with
give rise to no further questions, but concerning the others
we want to know, firstly, what kind of intentions are these which
arise as disturbers of others, and secondly, in what proportions
are the interfering related to the interfered ?

Will you permit me again to take the slip of the tongue as
representative of the whole species and allow me to answer the
second question before the first?

The interfering intention in the tongue slip may stand in a
significant relation to the intention interfered with, and then
the former contains a contradiction of the latter, correcting
or supplementing it. Or, to take a less intelligible and more
interesting case, the interfering intention has nothing to do with
the intention interfered with.

Proofs for the first of the two relations we can find without
trouble in the examples which we already know and in others
similar to those. In almost all cases of tongue slips where one
says the contrary of what he intended, where the interfering in-
tention expresses the antithesis of the intention interfered with,
the error is the presentation of the conflict between two irre-
concilable strivings. "I declare the meeting opened, but would
rather have it closed," is the meaning of the president's slip.
A political paper which has been accused of corruptibility, de-
fends itself in an article meant to reach a climax in the words :
"Our readers will testify that we have always interceded for the
good of all in the most disinterested manner." But the editor
who had been entrusted with the composition of the defence,
wrote, "in the most interested manner." That is, he thinks
"To be sure, I have to write this way, but I know better." A
representative of the people who urges that the Kaiser should be
told the truth "riickhaltlos," hears an inner voice which is
frightened by his boldness, and which through a slip changes
the "riickhaltlos" into "ruckgr atlas."1

In the examples familiar to you, which give the impression
of contraction and abbreviation, it is a question of a correction,
an addition or continuation by which the second tendency mani-
fests itself together with the first. "Things were revealed, but
better say it right out, they were filthy, therefore, things were

1 In the German Reichstag, November, 1908. ' ' Biickhaltos ' ' means ' ' unre-
servedly. " " Riiekgratlos ' ' means ' ' without backbone. ' '

44 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

re filed."2 "The people who understand this topic can be counted
on the fingers of one hand, but no, there is really only one who
understands it; therefore, counted on one finger." Or, "My
husband may eat and drink whatever he wants. But you know
very well that 7 don 't permit him to want anything ; therefore
he may eat and drink whatever / want." In all these cases,
therefore, the slip arises from the content of the intention itself,
or is connected with it.

The other type of relationship between the two interfering
intentions seems strange. If the interfering intention has noth-
ing to do with the content of the one interfered with, where
then does it come from and how does it happen to make itself
manifest as interference just at that point? The observation
which alone can furnish an answer here, recognizes the fact
that the interference originates in a thought process which has
just previously occupied the person in question and which then
has that after-effect, irrespective of whether it has already found
expression in speech or not. It is therefore really to be desig-
nated as perseveration, but not necessarily as the perseveration
of spoken words. Here also there is no lack of an associative
connection between the interfering and the interfered with, yet
it is not given in the content, but artificially restored, often by
means of forced connecting links.

Here is a simple example of this, which I myself observed.
In our beautiful Dolomites, I meet two Viennese ladies who are
gotten up as tourists. I accompany them a short distance and
we discuss the pleasures, but also the difficulties of the tourist's
mode of life. One lady admits this way of spending the day
entails much discomfort. "It is true," she says, "that it is
not at all pleasant, when one has tramped all day in the sun,
and waist and shirt are soaked through. ' ' At this point in this
sentence she suddenly has to overcome a slight hesitancy. Then
she continues: "But then, when one gets nach Hose, and can
change . . . "* We did not analyze this slip, but I am sure

* * ' Zum Vorschein bringen, ' ' means to bring to light. ' ' Schweinereien ' '
means filthiness or obscurity. The telescoping of the two ideas, resulting
in the word " Vorschwein, " plainly reveals the speaker's opinion of the
affair.

* The lady meant to say ' ' Nach Hause, " "to reach home. ' ' The word
" Hose " means " drawers." The preservating content of her hesitancy
it hereby revealed.

The Psychology of Errors 45

you can easily understand it. The lady wanted to make the
enumeration more complete and to say, "Waist, shirt and
drawers." From motives of propriety, the mention of the
drawers (Hose) was suppressed, but in the next sentence of
quite independent content the unuttered word came to light as
a distortion of the similar word, house (Hause) .

Now we can turn at last to the long delayed main question,
namely, what kind of intentions are these which get themselves
expressed in an unusual way as interferences of others, intentions
within whose great variety we wish nevertheless to find what is
common to them all? If we examine a series of them to this
end, we will soon find that they divide themselves into three
groups. In the first group belong the cases in which the inter-
fering tendency is known to the speaker, and which, moreover,
was felt by him before the slip. Thus, in the case of the slip
"refilled," the speaker not only admits that he agreed with the
judgment "filthy," on the incidents in question, but also that
he had the intention (which he later abandoned) of giving it
verbal expression. A second group is made up of those cases
in which the interfering tendency is immediately recognized by
the subject as his own, but in which he is ignorant of the fact
that the interfering tendency was active in him just before the
slip. He therefore accepts our interpretation, yet remains to a
certain extent surprised by it. Examples of this situation can
perhaps more easily be found among errors other than slips of
the tongue. In a third group the interpretation of the inter-
fering intention is energetically denied by the speaker. He not
only denies that the interfering tendency was active in him
before the slip, but he wants to assert that it was at all times
completely alien to him. Will you recall the example of "hic-
cough," and the absolutely impolite disavowal which I received
at the hands of this speaker by my disclosure of the interfering
intention. You know that so far we have no unity in our
conception of these cases. I pay no attention to the toastmaster 's
disavowal and hold fast to my interpretation ; while you, I am
sure, are yet under the influence of his repudiation and are
considering whether one ought not to forego the interpretation
of such slips, and let them pass as purely physiological acts,
incapable of further analysis. I can imagine what it is that
frightens you off. My interpretation draws the conclusion that

46 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

intentions of which he himself knows nothing may manifest them-
selves in a speaker, and that I can deduce them from the circum-
stances. You hesitate before so novel a conclusion and one so full
of consequences. I understand that, and sympathize with you
to that extent. But let us make one thing clear: if you want
consistently to carry through the conception of errors which
you have derived from so many examples, you must decide to
accept the above conclusion, even though it be unpleasant. If
you cannot do so, you must give up that understanding of errors
which you have so recently won.

Let us tarry a while over the point which unites the three
groups, which is common to the three mechanisms of tongue
slips. Fortunately, that is unmistakable. In the first two groups
the interfering tendency is recognized by the speaker; in the
first there is the additional fact that it showed itself immediately
before the slip. In both cases, however, it was suppressed. The
speaker had made up his mind not to convert the interfering
tendency into speech and then the slip of the tongue occurred;
that is to say, the suppressed tendency obtains expression against
the speaker's will, in that it changes the expression of the in-
tention which he permits, mixes itself with it or actually puts
itself in its place. This is, then the mechanism of the tongue
slip.

From my point of view, I can also best harmonize the processes
of the third group with the mechanism here described. I need
only assume that these three groups are differentiated by the
different degrees of effectiveness attending the suppression of
an intention. In the first group, the intention is present and
makes itself perceptible before the utterance of the speaker;
not until then does it suffer the suppression for which it in-
demnifies itself in the slip. In the second group the suppression
extends farther. The intention is no longer perceptible before
the subject speaks. It is remarkable that the interfering inten-
tion is in no way deterred by this from taking part in the
causation of the slip. Through this fact, however, the explana-
tion of the procedure in the third group is simplified for us.
I shall be so bold as to assume that in the error a tendency can
manifest itself which has been suppressed for even a longer time,
perhaps a very long time, which does not become perceptible and
which, therefore, cannot be directly denied by the speaker. But

The Psychology of Errors 47

leave the problem of the third group; from the observation of
the other cases, you must draw the conclusion that the suppres-
sion of the existing intention to say something is the indis-
pensable condition of the occurrence of a slip.

We may now claim that we have made further progress in
understanding errors. We know not only that they are psychic
acts, in which we can recognize meaning and purpose, and that
they arise through the mutual interference of two different in-
tentions, but, in addition, we know that one of these intentions
must have undergone a certain suppression in order to be able
to manifest itself through interference with the other. The inter-
fering intention must itself first be interfered with before it can
become interfering. Naturally, a complete explanation of the
phenomena which we call errors is not attained to by this. We
immediately see further questions arising, and suspect in general
that there will be more occasions for new questions as we progress
further. We might, for example, ask why the matter does not
proceed much more simply. If there is an existing purpose to
suppress a certain tendency instead of giving it expression, then
this suppression should be so successful that nothing at all of
the latter comes to light; or it could even fail, so that the
suppressed tendency attains to full expression. But errors are
compromise formations. They mean some success and some
failure for each of the two purposes. The endangered intention
is neither completely suppressed nor does it, without regard to
individual cases, come through wholly intact. We can imagine
that special conditions must be existent for the occurrence of
such interference or compromise formations, but then we cannot
even conjecture what sort they may be. Nor do I believe that
we can uncover these unknown circumstances through further
penetration into the study of errors. Kather will it be necessary
thoroughly to examine other obscure fields of psychic life. Only
the analogies which we there encounter can give us the courage
to draw those assumptions which are requisite to a more funda-
mental elucidation of errors. And one thing more. Even
working with small signs, as we have constantly been in the
habit of doing in this province, brings its dangers with it. There
is a mental disease, combined paranoia, in which the utilization
of such small signs is practiced without restriction, and I nat-
urally would not wish to give it as my opinion that these con-

48 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

elusions, built up on this basis, are correct throughout. We can
be protected from such dangers only by the broad basis of our
observations, by the repetition of similar impressions from the
most varied fields of psychic life.

We will therefore leave the analysis of errors here. But may
I remind you of one thing more : keep in mind, as a prototype,
the manner in which we have treated these phenomena. You can
see from these examples what the purposes of our psychology
are. We do not wish merely to describe the phenomena and to
classify them, but to comprehend them as signs of a play of
forces in the psychic, as expressions of tendencies striving to
an end, tendencies which work together or against one another.
We seek a dynamic conception of psychic phenomena. The
perceived phenomena must, in our conception, give way to those
strivings whose existence is only assumed.

Hence we will not go deeper into the problem of errors, but
we can still undertake an expedition through the length of this
field, in which we will reencounter things familiar to us, and
will come upon the tracks of some that are new. In so doing we
will keep to the division which we made in the beginning of our
study, of the three groups of tongue slips, with the related forms
of pen slips, misreadings, mishearings, forgetfulness with its
subdivisions according to the forgotten object (proper names,
foreign words, projects, impressions), and the other faults of
mistaking, mislaying and losing objects. Errors, in so far as
they come into our consideration, are grouped in part with for-
getfulness, in part with mistakes.

We have already spoken in such detail of tongue slips, and
yet there are still several points to be added. Linked with
tongue slips are smaller effective phenomena which are hot en-
tirely without interest. No one likes to make a slip of the
tongue; often one fails to hear his own slip, though never that
of another. Tongue slips are in a certain sense infectious ; it is
not at all easy to discuss tongue slips without falling into slips
of the tongue oneself. The most trifling forms of tongue slips
are just the ones which have no particular illumination to throw
on the hidden psychic processes, but are nevertheless not difficult
to penetrate in their motivation. If, for example, anyone pro-
nounces a long vowel as a short, in consequence of an inter-
ference no matter how motivated, he will foi that reason soon

The Psychology of Errors 49

after lengthen a short vowel and commit a new slip in compensa-
tion for the earlier one. The same thing occurs when one has
pronounced a double vowel unclearly and hastily; for example,
an "eu" or an "oi" as "ei." The speaker tries to correct it
by changing a subsequent "ei" or "eu" to "oi." In this con-
duct the determining factor seems to be a certain consideration
for the hearer, who is not to think that it is immaterial to the
speaker how he treats his mother tongue. The second, compen-
sating distortion actually has the purpose of making the hearer
conscious of the first, and of assuring him that it also did not
escape the speaker. The most frequent and most trifling cases
of slips consist in the contractions and f oresoundings which show
themselves in inconspicuous parts of speech. One's tongue slips
in a longer speech to such an extent that the last word of the
intended speech is said too soon. That gives the impression oif
a certain impatience to be finished with the sentence and gives
proof in general of a certain resistance to communicating this
sentence or speech as a whole. Thus we come to borderline cases
in which the differences between the psychoanalytic and the
common physiological conception of tongue slips are blended.
We assume that in these cases there is a tendency which inter-
feres with the intention of the speech. But it can only announce
that it is present, and not what its own intention is. The inter-
ference which it occasions then follows some sound influences
or associative relationship, and may be considered as a distrac-
tion of attention from the intended speech. But neither this
disturbance of attention nor the associative tendency which has
been activated, strikes the essence of the process. This hints,
however, at the existence of an intention which interferes with
the purposed speech, an intention whose nature cannot (as is
possible in all the more pronounced cases of tongue slips) this
time be guessed from its effects.

Slips of the pen, to which I now turn, are in agreement with
those of the tongue to the extent that we need expect to gain
no new points of view from them. Perhaps we will be content
with a small gleaning. Those very common little slips of the
pen — contractions, anticipations of later words, particularly of
the last words — again point to a general distaste for writing, and
to an impatience to be done ; the pronounced effects of pen slips
permit the nature and purpose of the interfering tendency to

50 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

be recognized. One knows in general that if one finds a slip of
the pen in a letter everything was not as usual with the writer.
"What was the matter one cannot always establish. The pen slip
is frequently as little noticed by the person who makes it as
the tongue slip. The following observation is striking: There
are some persons who have the habit of always rereading a
letter they have written before sending it. Others do not do so.
But if the latter make an exception and reread the letter, they
always have the opportunity of finding and correcting a con-
spicuous pen slip. How can that be explained ? This looks as if
these persons knew that they had made a slip of the pen while
writing the letter. Shall we really believe that such is the case ?
There is an interesting problem linked with the practical
significance of the pen slip. You may recall the case of the
murderer H., who made a practice of obtaining cultures of the
most dangerous disease germs from scientific institutions, by
pretending to be a bacteriologist, and who used these cultures
to get his close relatives out of the way in this most modern
fashion. This man once complained to the authorities of such
an institution about the ineffectiveness of the culture which had
been sent to him, but committed a pen slip and instead of the
words, ''in my attempts on mice and guinea pigs," was plainly
written, "in my attempts on people."* This slip even attracted
the attention of the doctors at the institution, but so far as I
know, they drew no conclusion from it. Now what do you
think? Might not the doctors better have accepted the slip as
a confession and instituted an investigation through which the
murderer's handiwork would have been blocked in time? In
this case was not ignorance of our conception of errors to blame
for an omission of practical importance? Well, I am inclined
to think that such a slip would surely seem very suspicious to
me, but a fact of great importance stands in the way of its
utilization as a confession. The thing is not so simple. The
pen slip is surely an indication, but by itself it would not have
been sufficient to instigate an investigation. That the man is
preoccupied with the thought of infecting human beings, the
slip certainly does betray, but it does not make it possible to
decide whether this thought has the value of a clear plan of

4 The German reads, ' ' bei meinen Versuchen an. Mausen, ' ' which, through
the slip of the pen, resulted in ' ' bei meinen Versuchen an Menschen. ' '

The Psychology of Errors 51

injury or merely of a phantasy having no practical consequence.
It is even possible that the person who made such a slip will
deny this phantasy with the best subjective justification and
will reject it as something entirely alien to him. Later, when we
give our attention to the difference between psychic and material
reality, you will understand these possibilities even better. Yet
this is again a case in which an error later attained unsuspected
significance.

In misreading, we encounter a psychic situation which is
clearly differentiated from that of the tongue slips or pen slips.
The one of the two rival tendencies is here replaced by a sensory
stimulus and perhaps for that reason is less resistant. What one
is reading is not a production of one's own psychic activity, as
is something which one intends to write. In a large majority
of cases, therefore, the misreading consists in a complete sub-
stitution. One substitutes another word for the word to be
read, and there need be no connection in meaning between the
text and the product of the misreading. In general, the slip
is based upon a word resemblance. Lichtenberg 's example of
reading "Agamemnon" for "angenommen"5 is the best of this
group. If one wishes to discover the interfering tendency which
causes the misreading, one may completely ignore the misread
text and can begin the analytic investigation with the two ques-
tions: "What is the first idea that occurs in free association to
the product of the misreading, and, in what situation did the
misreading occur? Now and then a knowledge of the latter
suffices by itself to explain the misreading. Take, for example,
the individual who, distressed by certain needs, wanders about
in a strange city and reads the word "Closethaus" on a large
sign on the first floor of a house. He has just time to be sur-
prised at the fact that the sign has been nailed so high up when
he discovers that, accurately observed, the sign reads "Corset-
haus." In other cases the misreadings which are independent of
the text require a penetrating analysis which cannot be accom-
plished without practice and confidence in the psychoanalytic
technique. But generally it is not a matter of much difficulty
to obtain the elucidation of a misreading. The substituted word,
as in the example, "Agamemnon," betrays without more ado
the thought sequence from which the interference results. In

1 ' ' Angenommen " is a verb, meaning ' ' to accept. ' '

52 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

war times, for instance, it is very common for one to read into
everything which contains a similar word structure, the names
of the cities, generals and military expressions which are con-
stantly buzzing around us. In this way, whatever interests and
preoccupies one puts itself in the place of that which is foreign
or uninteresting. The after-effects of thoughts blur the new
perceptions.

There are other types of misreadings, in which the text itself
arouses the disturbing tendency, by means of which it is then
most often changed into its opposite. One reads something
which is undesired ; analysis then convinces one that an intensive
wish to reject what has been read should be made responsible
for the alteration.

In the first mentioned and more frequent cases of misreading,
two factors are neglected to which we gave an important role
in the mechanism of errors: the conflict of two tendencies and
the suppression of one which then indemnifies itself by pro-
ducing the error. Not that anything like the opposite occurs in
misreading, but the importunity of the idea content which leads
to misreading is nevertheless much more conspicuous than the
suppression to which the latter may previously have been sub-
jected. Just these two factors are most tangibly apparent in
the various situations of errors of forgetfulness.

Forgetting plans is actually uniform in meaning ; its interpre-
tation is, as we have heard, not denied even by the layman. The
tendency interfering with the plan is always an antithetical
intention, an unwillingness concerning which we need only dis-
cover why it does not come to expression in a different and less
disguised manner. But the existence of this unwillingness is not
to be doubted. Sometimes it is possible even to guess something
of the motives which make it necessary for this unwillingness to
disguise itself, and it always achieves its purpose by the error
resulting ' from the concealment, while its rejection would be
certain were it to present itself as open contradiction. If an
important change in the psychic situation occurs between the
formulation of the plan and its execution, in consequence of
which the execution of the plan does not come into question,
then the fact that the plan was forgotten is no longer in the
class of errors. One is no longer surprised at it, and one under-
stands that it would have been superfluous to have remembered

The Psychology of Errors 53

the plan ; it was then permanently or temporarily effaced. For-
getting a plan can be called an error only when we have no
reason to believe there was such an interruption.

The cases of forgetting plans are in general so uniform and
transparent that they do not interest us in our investigation.
There are two points, however, from which we can learn some-
thing new. We have said that forgetting, that is, the non-
execution of a plan, points to an antipathy toward it. This
certainly holds, but, according to the results of our investiga-
tions, the antipathy may be of two sorts, direct and indirect.
What is meant by the latter can best be explained by one or
two examples. If a patron forgets to say a good word for his
protege to a third person, it may be because the patron is not
really very much interested in the protege, therefore, has no
great inclination to commend him. It is, at any rate, in this
sense that the protege will construe his patron's forgetfulness.
But the matter may be more complicated. The patron's antipathy
to the execution of the plan may originate in another quarter
and fasten upon quite a different point. It need not have any-
thing to do with the protege, but may be directed toward the
third person to whom the good word was to have been said.
Thus, you see what doubts here confront the practical applica-
tion of our interpretation. The protege, despite a correct inter-
pretation of the forgetfulness, stands in danger of becoming too
suspicious, and of doing his patron a grave injustice. Or, if an
individual forgets a rendezvous which he has made, and which
he had resolved to keep, the most frequent basis will certainly
be the direct aversion to encountering this person. But analysis
might here supply the information that the interfering intention
was not directed against that person, but against the place in
which they were to have met, and which was avoided because of
a painful memory associated with it. Or, if one forgets to mail
a letter, the counter-intention may be directed against the con-
tent of that letter, yet this does not in any way exclude the pos-
sibility that the letter is harmless in itself, and only subject to
the counter-intention because something about it reminds the
writer of another letter written previously, which, in fact, did
afford a basis for the antipathy. One can say in such a case that
the antipathy has here transferred itself from that former letter
where it was justified to the present one in which it really has

54 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

no meaning. Thus you see that one must always exercise re-
straint and caution in the application of interpretations, even
though the interpretations are justified. That which is psycho-
logically equivalent may nevertheless in practice be very am-
biguous.

Phenomena such as these will seem very unusual to you.
Perhaps you are inclined to assume that the "indirect" an-
tipathy is enough to characterize the incident as pathological.
Yet I can assure you that it also occurs in a normal and healthy
setting. I am in no way willing to admit the unreliability of
our analytic interpretation. After all, the above-discussed
ambiguity of plan-forgetting exists only so long as we have not
attempted an analysis of the case, and are interpreting it only
on the basis of our general suppositions. When we analyze the
person in question, we discover with sufficient certainty in each
case whether or not it is a direct antipathy, or what its origin
is otherwise.

A second point is the following: when we find in a large
majority of cases that the forgetting of a plan goes back to an
antipathy, we gain courage to extend this solution to another
series of cases in which the analyzed person does not confirm,
but denies, the antipathy which we inferred. Take as an ex-
ample the exceedingly frequent incidents of forgetting to return
books which one has borrowed, or forgetting to pay one's bills
or debts. We will be so bold as to accuse the individual in
question of intending to keep the books and not to pay the
debts, while he will deny such an intention but will not be in
a position to give us any other explanation of his conduct.
Thereupon we insist that he has the intention, only he knows
nothing about it; all we need for our inference is to have the
intention betray itself through the effect of the forgetfulness.
The subject may then repeat that he had merely forgotten it.
You now recognize the situation as one in which we once before
found ourselves. If we wish to be consistent in our interpreta-
tion, an interpretation which has been proved as manifold as
it is justified, we will be unavoidably forced to the conclusion
that there are tendencies in a human being which can become
effective without his being conscious of them. By so doing,
however, we place ourselves in opposition to all the views which
prevail in daily life and in psychology.

The Psychology of Errors 55

Forgetting proper names and foreign names as well as foreign
words can be traced in the same manner to a counter-intention
which aims either directly or indirectly at the name in question.
I have already given you an example of such direct antipathy.
The indirect causation, however, is particularly frequent and
generally necessitates careful analysis for its determination.
Thus, for example, in war times which force us to sacrifice so
many of our former inclinations, the ability to recall proper
names also suffers severely in consequence of the most peculiar
connections. A short time ago it happened that I could not
reproduce the name of that harmless Moravian city of Bisenz,
and analysis showed that no direct dislike was to blame, but
rather the sound resemblance to the name of the Bisenzi palace
in Orrieto, in which I used to wish I might live. As a motive for
the antagonism to remembering the name, we here encounter
for the first time a principle which will later disclose to us its
whole tremendous significance in the causation of neurotic symp-
toms, viz., the aversion on the part of the memory to remember-
ing anything which is connected with unpleasant experience
and which would revive this unpleasantness by a reproduction.
This intention of avoiding unpleasantness in recollections of
other psychic acts, the psychic flight from unpleasantness, we
may recognize as the ultimate effective motive not only for the
forgetting of names, but also for many other errors, such as
omissions of action, etc.

Forgetting names does, however, seem to be especially facili-
tated psycho-physiologically and therefore also occurs in cases
in which the interference of an unpleasantness-motive cannot be
established. If anyone once has a tendency to forget names,
you can establish by analytical investigation that he not only
loses names because he himself does not like them, or because
they remind him of something he does not like, but also because
the same name in his mind belongs to another chain of associa-
tions, with which he has more intimate relations. The name is
anchored there, as it were, and denied to the other associations
activated at the moment. If you will recall the tricks of
mnemonic technique you will ascertain with some surprise that
one forgets names in consequence of the same associations which
one otherwise purposely forms in order to save them from being
forgotten. The most conspicuous example of this is afforded by

56 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

proper names of persons, which conceivably enough must have
very different psychic values for different people. For example,
take a first name, such as Theodore. To one of you it will mean
nothing special, to another it means the name of his father,
brother, friend, or his own name. Analytic experience will then
show you that the first person is not in danger of forgetting that
a certain stranger bears this name, while the latter will be con-
stantly inclined to withhold from the stranger this name which
seems reserved for intimate relationships. Let us now assume
that this associative inhibition can come into contact with the
operation of the unpleasantness-principle, and in addition with
an indirect mechanism, and you will be in a position to form
a correct picture of the complexity of causation of this tem-
porary name-forgetting. An adequate analysis that does justice
to the facts, however, will completely disclose these complications.

Forgetting impressions and experiences shows the working of
the tendency to keep unpleasantness from recollection much more
clearly and conclusively than does the forgetting of names. It
does not, of course, belong in its entirety to the category of
errors, but only in so far as it seems to us conspicuous and
unjustified, measured by the measuring stick of our accustomed
conception — thus, for example, where the forgetfulness strikes
fresh or important impressions or impressions whose loss tears
a hole in the otherwise well-remembered sequence. Why and how
it is in general that we forget, particularly why and how we
forget experiences which have surely left the deepest impressions,
such as the incidents of our first years of childhood, is quite a
different problem, in which the defense against unpleasant
associations plays a certain role but is far from explaining every-
thing. That unpleasant impressions are easily forgotten is an
indubitable fact. Various psychologists have observed it, and
the great Darwin was so struck by it that he made the "golden
rule" for himself of writing down with particular care ob-
servations which seemed unfavorable to his theory, since he had
convinced himself that they were just the ones which would not
stick in his memory.

Those who hear for the first time of this principle of defense
against unpleasant recollections by means of forgetting, seldom
fail to raise the objection that they, on the contrary, have had
the experience that just the painful is hard to forget, inasmuch

The Psychology of Errors 57

as it always comes back to mind to torture the person against
his will — as, for example, the recollection of an insult or humilia-
tion. This fact is also correct, but the objection is not valid.
It is important that one begin betimes to reckon with the fact
that the psychic life is the arena of the struggles and exercises
of antagonistic tendencies, or, to express it in non-dynamic ter-
minology, that it consists of contradictions and paired antag-
onisms. Information concerning one specific tendency is of no
avail for the exclusion of its opposite ; there is room for both of
them. It depends only on how the opposites react upon each
other, what effects will proceed from the one and what from the
other.

Losing and mislaying objects is of especial interest to us
because of the ambiguity and the multiplicity of tendencies in
whose services the errors may act. The common element in all
cases is this, that one wished to lose something. The reasons
and purposes thereof vary. One loses an object when it has
become damaged, when one intends to replace it with a better
one, when one has ceased to like it, when it came from a person
whose relations to one have become strained, or when it was
obtained under circumst«uices of which one no longer wishes to
think. The same purpose may be served by letting the object
fall, be damaged or broken. In the life of society it is said to
have been found that unwelcome and illegitimate children are
much more often frail than those born in wedlock. To reach
this result we do not need the coarse technique of the so-called
angel-maker. A certain remissness in the care of the child is
said to suffice amply. In the preservation of objects, the case
might easily be the same as with the children.

But things may be singled out for loss without their having
forfeited any of their value, namely, when there exists the in-
tention to sacrifice something to fate in order to ward off some
other dreaded loss. Such exorcisings of fate are, according to
the findings of analysis, still very frequent among us ; therefore,
the loss of things is often a voluntary sacrifice. In the same
way losing may serve the purposes of obstinacy or self -punish-
ment. In short, the more distant motivation of the tendency to
get rid of a thing oneself by means of losing it is not overlooked.

Mistakes, like other errors, are often used to fulfill wishes
which one ought to deny oneself. The purpose is thus masked

58 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

as fortunate accident; for instance, one of our friends once
took the train to make a call in the suburbs, despite the clearest
antipathy to so doing, and then, in changing cars, made the
mistake of getting into the train which took him back to the
city. Or, if on a trip one absolutely wants to make a longer stay
at a half-way station, one is apt to overlook or miss certain
connections, so that he is forced to make the desired interruption
to the trip. Or, as once happened to a patient of mine whom
I had forbidden to call up his fiancee on the telephone, "by
mistake" and "absent-mindedly" he asked for a wrong number
when he wanted to telephone to me, so that he was suddenly
connected with the lady. A pretty example and one of practical
significance in making a direct mistake is the observation of an
engineer at a preliminary hearing in a damage suit :

' ' Some time ago I worked with several colleagues in the labora-
tory of a high school on a series of complicated elasticity experi-
ments, a piece of work which we had undertaken voluntarily
but which began to take more time than we had expected. One
day as I went into the laboratory with my colleague F., the latter
remarked how unpleasant it was to him to lose so much time
that day, since he had so much to do at home. I could not
help agreeing with him, and remarked half jokingly, alluding to
an incident of the previous week: 'Let's hope that the machine
gives out again so that we can stop work and go home early.'

"In the division of labor it happened that F. was given the
regulation of the valve of the press, that is to say, he was, by
means of a cautious opening of the valve, to let the liquid
pressure from the accumulator flow slowly into the cylinder of
the hydraulic press. The man who was directing the job stood
by the manometer (pressure gauge) and when the right pressure
had been reached called out in a loud voice: 'Stop.' At this
command F. seized the valve and turned with all his might —
to the left! (All valves, without exception, close to the right.)
Thereby the whole pressure of the accumulator suddenly became
effective in the press, a strain for which the connecting pipes
are not designed, so that a connecting pipe immediately burst —
quite a harmless defect, but one which nevertheless forced us to
drop work for the day and go home.

"It is characteristic, by the way, that some time afterward
when we were discussing this occurrence, my friend F. had no

The Psychology of Errors 59

recollection whatever of my remark, which I could recall with
certainty. ' '

From this point you may reach the conjecture that it is not
harmless accident which makes the hands of your domestics
such dangerous enemies to your household property. But you
can also raise the question whether it is always an accident when
one damages himself and exposes his own person to danger.
Thero are interests the value of which you will presently be able
to test by means of the analysis of observations.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is far from being all that might be
said about errors. There is indeed much left to investigate and
to discuss. But I am satisfied if, from our investigations to date,
your previous views are somewhat shaken and if you have
acquired a certain degree of liberality in the acceptance of new
ones. For the rest, I must content myself with leaving you
face to face with an unclear condition of affairs. "We cannot
prove all our axioms by the study of errors and, indeed, are
by no means solely dependent on this material. The great value
of errors for our purpose lies in the fact that they are very
frequent phenomena that can easily be observed on oneself and
the occurrence of which do not require a pathological condition.
I should like to mention just one more of your unanswered
questions before concluding.: "If, as we have seen in many
examples, people come so close to understanding errors and so
often act as though they penetrated their meaning, how is it
possible that they can so generally consider them accidental,
senseless and meaningless, and can so energetically oppose their
psychoanalytic elucidation ? ' '

You are right; that is conspicuous and demands an explana-
tion. I shall not give this explanation to you, however, but shall
guide you slowly to the connecting links from which the explana-
tion will force itself upon you without any aid from me.

n

THE DREAM

FIFTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach

ONE day the discovery was made that the disease symp-
toms of certain nervous patients have a meaning.1
Thereupon the psychoanalytic method of therapy was
founded. In this treatment it happened that the
patients also presented dreams in place of their symptoms.
Herewith originated the conjecture that these dreams also have
a meaning.

"We will not, however, pursue this historical path, but enter
upon the opposite one. We wish to discover the meaning of
dreams as preparation for the study of the neuroses. This
inversion is justified, for the study of dreams is not only the
best preparation for that of the neuroses, but the dream itself
is also a neurotic symptom, and in fact one which possesses for
us the incalculable advantage of occurring in all normals. In-
deed, if all human beings were well and would dream, we could
gain from their dreams almost all the insight to which the study
of the neuroses has led.

Thus it is that the dream becomes the object of psychoanalytic
research — again an ordinary, little-considered phenomenon, ap-
parently of no practical value, like the errors with which, indeed,
it shares the character of occurring in normals. But otherwise
the conditions are rather less favorable for our work. Errors
had been neglected only by science, which had paid little atten-
tion to them ; but at least it was no disgrace to occupy one 's self
with them. People said there are indeed more important things,
but perhaps something may come of it. Preoccupation with the
dream, however, is not merely impractical and superfluous, but
actually ignominious; it carries the odium of the unscientific,
awakens the suspicion of a personal leaning towards mysticism.
The idea of a physician busying himself with dreams when even
in neuropathology and psychiatry there are matters so much

1 Josef Breuer, in the years 1880-1882. Cf. also my lectures on psycho-
analysis, delivered in the United States in 1909.

63

64 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

more serious — tumors the size of apples which incapacitate the
organ of the psyche, hemorrhages, and chronic inflammations
in which one can demonstrate changes in the tissues under the
microscope! No, the dream is much too trifling an object, and
unworthy of Science.

And besides, it is a condition which in itself defies all the
requirements of exact research — in dream investigation one is
not even sure of one's object. A delusion, for example, presents
itself in clear and definite outlines. "I am the Emperor of
China," says the patient aloud. But the dream? It generally
cannot be related at all. If anyone relates a dream, has he any
guarantee that he has told it correctly, and not changed it dur-
ing the telling, or invented an addition which was forced by the
indefiniteness of his recollection? Most dreams cannot be re-
membered at all, are forgotten except "for small fragments. And
upon the interpretation of such material shall a scientific psy-
chology or method of treatment for patients be based ?

A certain excess in judgment may make us suspicious. The
objections to the dream as an object of research obviously go
too far. The question of insignificance we have already had to
deal with in discussing errors. "We said to ourselves that im-
portant matters may manifest themselves through small signs.
As concerns the indefiniteness of the dream, it is after all a
characteristic like any other. One cannot prescribe the char-
acteristics of an object. Moreover, there are clear and definite
dreams. And there are other objects of psychiatric research
which suffer from the same trait of indefiniteness, e.g., many
compulsion ideas, with which even respectable and esteemed
psychiatrists have occupied themselves. I might recall the last
case which occurred in my practice. The patient introduced
himself to me with the words, ' ' I have a certain feeling as though
I had harmed or had wished to harm some living thing — a child ?
— no, more probably a dog — perhaps pushed it off a bridge — or
something else. ' ' We can overcome to some degree the difficulty
of uncertain recollection in the dream if we determine that
exactly what the dreamer tells us is to be taken as his dream,
without regard to anything which he has forgotten or may have
changed in recollection. And finally, one cannot make so general
an assertion as that the dream is an unimportant thing. We
know from our own experience that the mood in which one wakes

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 65

up after a dream may continue throughout the whole day.
Cases have been observed by physicians in which a psychosis
begins with a dream and holds to a delusion which originated
in it. It is related of historical personages that they drew their
inspiration for important deeds from dreams. So we may ask
whence comes the contempt of scientific circles for the dream ?

I think it is the reaction to their over-estimation in former
times. Reconstruction of the past is notoriously difficult, but
this much we may assume with certainty — if you will permit
me the jest — that our ancestors of 3000 years ago and more,
dreamed much in the way we do. As far as we know, all ancient
peoples attached great importance to dreams and considered
them of practical value. They drew omens for the future from
dreams, sought premonitions in them. In those days, to the
Greeks and all Orientals, a campaign without dream interpreters
must have been as impossible as a campaign without an aviation
scout to-day. When Alexander the Great undertook his cam-
paign of conquests, the most famous dream interpreters were in
attendance. The city of Tyrus, which was then still situated
on an island, put up so fierce a resistance that Alexander con-
sidered the idea of raising the siege. Then he dreamed one night
of a satyr dancing as if in triumph; and when he laid his
dream before his interpreters he received the information that
the victory over the city had been announced to him. He or-
dered the attack and took Tyrus. Among the Etruscans and
the Romans other methods of discovering the future were in
use, but the interpretation of dreams was practical and esteemed
during the entire Hellenic-Koman period. Of the literature
dealing with the topic at least the chief work has been preserved
to us, namely, the book of Artemidoros of Daldis, who is sup-
posed to have lived during the lifetime of the Emperor Hadrian.
How it happened subsequently that the art of dream interpre-
tation was lost and the dream fell into discredit, I cannot tell
you. Enlightenment cannot have had much part in it, for the
Dark Ages faithfully perserved things far more absurd than the
ancient dream interpretation. The fact is, the interest in dreams
gradually deteriorated into superstition, and could assert itself
only among the ignorant. The latest misuse of dream interpre-
tation in our day still tries to discover in dreams the numbers
which are going to be drawn in the small lottery. On the other

66 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

hand, the exact science of to-day has repeatedly dealt with
dreams, but always only with the purpose of applying its
physiological theories to the dream. By physicians, of course,
the dream was considered as a non-psychic act, as the mani-
festation of somatic irritations in the psychic life. Binz (1876)
pronounced the dream "a bodily process, in all cases useless, in
many actually pathological, above which the world-soul and
immortality are raised as high as the blue ether over the weed-
grown sands of the lowest plain." Maury compared it with
the irregular twitchings of St. Vitus' Dance in contrast to the
co-ordinated movements of the normal person. An old com-
parison makes the content of the dream analogous to the tones
which the "ten fingers of a musically illiterate person would
bring forth if they ran over the keys of the instrument. ' '

Interpretation means finding a hidden meaning. There- can
be no question of interpretation in such an estimation of the
dream process. Look up the description of the dream in Wundt,
Jodl and other newer philosophers. You will find an enumera-
tion of the deviations of dream life from waking thought, in a
sense disparaging to the dream. The description points out the
disintegration of association, the suspension of the critical
faculty, the elimination of all knowledge, and other signs of
diminished activity. The only valuable contribution to the
knowledge of the dream which we owe to exact science pertains
to the influence of bodily stimuli, operative during sleep, on
the content of the dream. There are two thick volumes of
experimental researches on dreams by the recently deceased Nor-
wegian author, J. Hourly Void, (translated into German in 1910
and 1912), which deal almost solely with the consequences of
changes in the position of the limbs. They are recommended
as the prototype of exact dream research. Now can you imagine
what exact science would say if it discovered that we wish to
attempt to find the meaning of dreams? It may be it has al-
ready said it, but we will not allow ourselves to be frightened off.
If errors can have a meaning, the dream can, too, and errors
in many cases have a meaning which has escaped exact science.
Let us confess to sharing the prejudice of the ancients and the
common people, and let us follow in the footsteps of the ancient
dream interpreters.

First of all, we must orient ourselves in our task, and take a

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 67

bird's eye view of our field. What is a dream? It is difficult
to say in one sentence. But we do not want to attempt any
definition where a reference to the material with which everyone
is familiar suffices. Yet we ought to select the essential element
of the dream. How can that be found? There are such
monstrous differences within the boundary which encloses our
province, differences in every direction. The essential thing will
very probably be that which we can show to be common to all
dreams.

Well, the first thing which is common to all dreams is that
we are asleep during their occurrence. The dream is apparently
the psychic life during sleep, which has certain resemblances
to that of the waking condition, and on the other hand is dis-
tinguished from it by important differences. That was noted
even in Aristotle's definition. Perhaps there are other connec-
tions obtaining between the dream and sleep. One can be
awakened by a dream, one frequently has a dream when he
wakes spontaneously or is forcibly awakened from sleep. The
dream then seems to be an intermediate condition between sleep-
ing and waking. Thus we are referred to the problem of sleep.
What, then, is sleep ?

That is a physiological or biological problem concerning which
there is still much controversy. We can form no decision on
the point, but I think we may attempt a psychological charac-
terization of sleep. Sleep is a condition in which I wish to have
nothing to do with the external world, and have withdrawn my
interest from it. I put myself to sleep by withdrawing myself
from the external world and by holding off its stimuli. I also
go to sleep when I am fatigued by the external world. Thus,
by going to sleep, I say to the external world, "Leave me in
peace, for I wish to sleep. ' ' Conversely, the child says, ' ' I won 't
go to bed yet, I am not tired, I want to have some more fun."
The biological intention of sleep thus seems to be recuperation ;
its psychological character, the suspension of interest in the
external world. Our relation to the world into which we came
so unwillingly, seems to include the fact that we cannot endure
it without interruption. For this reason we revert from time
to time to the pre-natal existence, that is, to the intra-uterine
existence. At least we create for ourselves conditions quite simi-
lar to those obtaining at that time — warmth, darkness and the

68 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

absence of stimuli. Some of us even roll ourselves into tight
packages and assume in sleep a posture very similar to the intra-
uterine posture. It seems as if the world did not wholly possess
us adults, it has only two-thirds of our life, we are still one-third
unborn. Each awakening in the morning is then like a new
birth. We also speak of the condition after sleep with the words,
"I feel as though I had been born anew," by which we probably
form a very erroneous idea of the general feeling of the newly
born. It may be assumed that the latter, on the contrary, feel
very uncomfortable. "We also speak of birth as "seeing the light
of day." If that be sleep, then the dream is not on its program
at all, rather it seems an unwelcome addition. We think, too,
that dreamless sleep is the best and only normal sleep. There
should be no psychic activity in sleep ; if the psyche stirs, then
just to that extent have we failed to reduplicate the foetal con-
dition; remainders of psychic activity could not be completely
avoided. These remainders are the dream. Then it really does
seem that the dream need have no meaning. It was different in
the case of errors ; they were activities of the waking state. But
when I am asleep, have quite suspended psychic activity and
have suppressed all but certain of its remainders, then it is by
no means inevitable that these remainders have a meaning. In
fact, I cannot make use of this meaning, in view of the fact that
the rest of my psyche is asleep. This must, of course, be a
question only of twitching, like spasmodic reactions, a question
only of psychic phenomena such as follow directly upon somatic
stimulation. The dream, therefore, appears to be the sleep-dis-
turbing remnant of the psychic activity of waking life, and we
may make the resolution promptly to abandon a theme which is
so ill-adapted to psychoanalysis.

However, even if the dream is superfluous, it exists never-
theless and we may try to give an account of its existence.
Why does not the psyche go to sleep? Probably because there
is something which gives it no rest. Stimuli act upon the psyche,
and it must react to them. The dream, therefore, is the way
in which the psycne reacts to the stimuli acting upon it in the
sleeping condition. We note here a point of approach to the
understanding of the dream. We can now search through differ-
ent dreams to discover what are the stimuli which seek to
disturb the sleep and which are reacted to with dreams. Thus
far we might be said to have discovered the first common element.

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 69

Are there other common elements ? Yes, it is undeniable that
there are, but they are much more difficult to grasp and de-
scribe. The psychic processes of sleep, for example, have a very
different character from those of waking. One experiences many
things in the dream, and believes in them, while one really has
experienced nothing but perhaps the one disturbing stimulus.
One experiences them predominantly in visual images; feelings
may also be interspersed in the dream as well as thoughts ; the
other senses may also have experiences, but after all the dream
experiences are predominantly pictures. A part of the difficulty
of dream telling comes from the fact that we have to transpose
these pictures into words. ' ' I could draw it, ' ' the dreamer says
frequently, "but I don't know how to say it." That is not
really a case of diminished psychic activity, like that of the
feeble-minded in comparison with the highly gifted ; it is some-
thing qualitatively different, but it is difficult to say wherein the
difference lies. G. T. Fechner once hazarded the conjecture that
the scene in which dreams are played is a different one from
that of the waking perceptual life. To be sure, we do not under-
stand this, do not know what we are to think of it, but the im-
pression of strangeness which most dreams make upon us does
really bear this out. The comparison of the dream activity with
the effects of a hand untrained in music also fails at this point.
The piano, at least, will surely answer with the same tones, even
if not with melodies, as soon as by accident one brushes its
keys. Let us keep this second common element of all dreams
carefully in mind, even though it be not understood.

Are there still further traits in common? I find none, and
see only differences everywhere, differences indeed in the appar-
ent length as well as the definiteness of the activities, participa-
tion of effects, durability, etc. All this really is not what we
might expect of a compulsion-driven, irresistible, convulsive de-
fense against a stimulus. As concerns the dimensions of dreams,
there are very short ones which contain only one picture or a
few, one thought — yes, even one word only — , others which are
uncommonly rich in content, seem to dramatize whole novels and
to last very long. There are dreams which are as plain as an
experience itself, so plain that we do not recognize them as
dreams for a long time after waking; others which are in-
describably weak, shadowy and vague j indeed in one and the

70 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

same dream, the overemphasized and the scarcely comprehensible,
indefinite parts may alternate with each other. Dreams may be
quite meaningful or at least coherent, yes, even witty, fantas-
tically beautiful. Others, again, are confused, as if feeble-
minded, absurd, often actually mad. There are dreams which
leave us quite cold, others in which all the effects come to
expression — pain deep enough for tears, fear strong enough to
waken us, astonishment, delight, etc. Dreams are generally
quickly forgotten upon waking, or they may hold over a day to
such an extent as to be faintly and incompletely remembered in
the evening. Others, for example, the dreams of childhood, are
so well preserved that they stay in the memory thirty years
later, like fresh experiences. Dreams, like individuals, may
appear a single time, and never again, or they may repeat them-
selves unchanged in the same person, or with small variations.
In short, this nightly psychic activity can avail itself of an
enormous repertoire, can indeed compass everything which the
psychic accomplishes by day, but yet the two are not the same.

One might try to give an account of this many-sidedness of
the dream by assuming that it corresponds to different inter-
mediate stages between sleeping and waking, different degrees
of incomplete sleep. Yes, but in that case as the psyche nears
the waking state, the conviction that it is a dream ought to in-
crease along with the value, content and distinctiveness of the
dream product, and it would not happen that immediately be-
side a distinct and sensible dream fragment a senseless and
indistinct one would occur, to be followed again by a goodly
piece of work. Surely the psyche could not change its degree
of somnolence so quickly. This explanation thus avails us
nothing ; at any rate, it cannot be accepted offhand.

Let us, for the present, give up the idea of finding the
meaning of the dream and try instead to clear a path to
a better understanding of the dream by means of the elements
common to all dreams. From the relation of dreams to the
sleeping condition, we concluded that the dream is the reaction
to a sleep-disturbing stimulus. As we have heard, this is the
only point upon which exact experimental psychology can come
to our assistance ; it gives us the information that stimuli applied
during sleep appear in the dream. There have been many such
investigations carried out, including that of the above mentioned

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 71

Hourly Void. Indeed, each of us must at some time have been
in a position to confirm this conclusion by means of occasional
personal observations. I shall choose certain older experiments
for presentation. Maury had such experiments made on his own
person. He was allowed to smell cologne while dreaming. He
dreamed that he was in Cairo in the shop of Johann Marina
Farina, and therewith were linked further extravagant adven-
tures. Or, he was slightly pinched in the nape of the neck;
he dreamed of having a mustard plaster applied, and of a doctor
who had treated him in childhood. Or, a drop of water was
poured on his forehead. He was then in Italy, perspired pro-
fusely, and drank the white wine of Orvieto.

What strikes us about these experimentally induced dreams
we may perhaps be able to comprehend still more clearly ia
another series of stimulated dreams. Three dreams have beerj
recounted by a witty observer, Hildebrand, all of them reactions
to the sound of the alarm clock :

"I go walking one spring morning and saunter through the
green fields to a neighboring village. There I see the inhabitants
in gala attire, their hymn books under their arms, going church-
ward in great numbers. To be sure, this is Sunday, and the
early morning service will soon begin. I decide to attend, but
since I am somewhat overheated, decide to cool off in the cemetery
surrounding the church. While I am there reading several in-
scriptions, I hear the bell ringer ascend the tower, and now see
the little village church bell which is to give the signal for the
beginning of the service. The bell hangs a good bit longer, then
it begins to swing, and suddenly its strokes sound clear and
penetrating, so clear and penetrating that they make an end of
— my sleep. The bell-strokes, however, come from my alarm
clock.

" A second combination. It is a clear winter day. The streets
are piled high with snow. I agree to go on a sleighing party,
but must wait a long time before the announcement comes that
the sleigh is at the door. Then follow the preparations for
getting in — the fur coat is put on, the footwarmer dragged
forth — and finally I am seated in my place. But the departure
is still delayed until the reins give the waiting horses the tangible
signal. Now they pull ; the vigorously shaken bells begin their
familiar Janizary music so powerfully that instantly the spider

72 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

web of the dream is torn. Again it is nothing but the shrill tone
of the alarm clock.

"And still a third example. I see a kitchen maid walking
along the corridor to the dining room with some dozens of
plates piled high. The pillar of porcelain in her arms seems to
me in danger of losing its balance. 'Take care!' I warn her.
'The whole load will fall to the ground.' Naturally, the in-
evitable retort follows : one is used to that, etc., and I still con-
tinue to follow the passing figure with apprehensive glances.
Sure enough, at the threshold she stumbles — the brittle dishes
fall and rattle and crash over the floor in a thousand pieces.
But — the endless racket is not, as I soon notice, a real rattling,
but really a ringing and with this ringing, as the awakened sub-
ject now realizes, the alarm has performed its duty."

These dreams are very pretty, quite meaningful, not at all
incoherent, as dreams usually are. We will not object to them
on that score. That which is common to them all is that the
situation terminates each time in a noise, which one recognizes
upon waking up as the sound of the alarm. Thus we see here
how a dream originates, but also discover something else. The
dream does not recognize the alarm — indeed the alarm does not
appear in the dream — the dream replaces the alarm sound with
another, it interprets the stimulus which interrupts the sleep,
but interprets it each time in a different way. Why? There is
no answer to this question, it seems to be something arbitrary.
But to understand the dream means to be able to say why it has
chosen just this sound and no other for the interpretation of
the alarm-clock stimulus. In quite analogous fashion, we must
raise the objection to the Maury experiment that we see well
enough that the stimulus appears in the dream, but that we do
not discover why it appears in just this form ; and that the form
taken by the dream does not seem to follow from the nature of
the sleep-disturbing stimulus. Moreover, in the Maury experi-
ments a mass of other dream material links itself to the direct
stimulus product; as, for example, the extravagant adventures
in the cologne dream, for which one can give no account.

Now I shall ask you to consider the fact that the waking
dreams offer by far the best chances for determining the influ-
ence of external sleep-disturbing stimuli. In most of the other
eases it will be more difficult. One does not wake up in all

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 73

dreams, and in the morning, when one remembers the dream of
the night, how can one discover the disturbing stimulus which
was perhaps in operation at night? I did succeed once in sub-
sequently establishing such a sound stimulus, though naturally-
only in consequence of special circumstances. I woke up one
morning in a place in the Tyrolese Mountains, with the certainty
that I had dreamt the Pope had died. I could not explain the
dream, but then my wife asked me : "Did you hear the terrible
bell ringing that broke out early this morning from all the
churches and chapels?" No, I had heard nothing, my sleep is
a sound one, but thanks to this information I understood my
dream. How often may such stimuli incite the sleeper to dream
without his knowing of them afterward ? Perhaps often, perhaps
infrequently; when the stimulus can no longer be traced, one
cannot be convinced of its existence. Even without this fact we
have given up evaluating the sleep disturbing stimuli, since we
know that they can explain only a little bit of the dream, and
not the whole dream reaction.

But we need not give up this whole theory for that reason.
In fact, it can be extended. It is clearly immaterial through
what cause the sleep was disturbed and the psyche incited to
dream. If the sensory stimulus is not always externally induced,
it may be instead a stimulus proceeding from the internal organs,
a so-called somatic stimulus. This conjecture is obvious, and it
corresponds to the most popular conception of the origin of
dreams. Dreams come from the stomach, one often hears it
said. Unfortunately it may be assumed here again that the cases
are frequent in which the somatic stimulus which operated dur-
ing the night can no longer be traced after waking, and has
thus become unverifiable. But let us not overlook the fact that
many recognized experiences testify to the derivation of dreams
from the somatic stimulus. It is in general indubitable that the
condition of the internal organs can influence the dream. The
relation of many a dream content to a distention of the bladder
or to an excited condition of the genital organs, is so clear that
it cannot be mistaken. From these transparent cases one can
proceed to others in which, from the content of the dream, at
least a justifiable conjecture may be made that such somatic
stimuli have been operative, inasmuch as there is something in
this content which may be conceived as elaboration, representa-

74 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

tion, interpretation of the stimuli. The dream investigator
Schirmer (1861) insisted with particular emphasis on the deriva-
tion of the dream from organic stimuli, and cited several splen-
did examples in proof. For example, in a dream he sees "two
rows of beautiful boys with blonde hair and delicate complexions
stand opposite each other in preparation for a fight, fall upon
each other, seize each other, take up the old position again, and
repeat the whole performance; here the interpretation of these
rows of boys as teeth is plausible in itself, and it seems to become
convincing when after this scene the dreamer "pulls a long
tooth out of his jaws." The interpretation of "long, narrow,
winding corridors" as intestinal stimuli, seems sound and con-
firms Schirmer 's assertion that the dream above all seeks to
represent the stimulus-producing organ by means of objects
resembling it.

Thus we must be prepared to admit that the internal stimuli
may play the same role in the dream as the external. Un-
fortunately, their evaluation is subject to the same difficulties
as those we have already encountered. In a large number of
cases the interpretation of the stimuli as somatic remains uncer-
tain and undemonstrable. Not all dreams, but only a certain
portion of them, arouse the suspicion that an internal organic
stimulus was concerned in their causation. And finally, the
internal stimuli will be as little able as the external sensory
stimuli to explain any more of the dream than pertains to the
direct reaction to the stimuli. The origin, therefore, of the rest
of the dream remains obscure.

Let us, however, notice a peculiarity of dream life which be-
comes apparent in the study of these effects of stimuli. The
dream does not simply reproduce the stimulus, but it elaborates
it, it plays upon it, places it in a sequence of relationships, re-
places it with something else. That is a side of dream activity
which must interest us because it may lead us closer to the nature
of the dream. If one does something under stimulation, then
this stimulation need not exhaust the act. Shakespeare's Mac-
beth, for example, is a drama created on the occasion of the
coronation of the King who for the first time wore upon his head
the crown symbolizing the union of three countries. But does
this historical occasion cover the content of the drama, does it
explain its greatness and its riddle? Perhaps the external and

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 75

internal stimuli, acting upon the sleeper, are only the ineitors of
the dream, of whose nature nothing is betrayed to us from our
knowledge of that fact

The other element common to dreams, their psychic peculiar-
ity, is on the one hand hard to comprehend, and on the other
hand offers no point for further investigation. In dreams we
perceive a thing for the most part in visual forms. Can the
stimuli furnish a solution for this fact ? Is it actually the stimu-
lus which. we experience? Why, then, is the experience visual
when optic stimulation incited the dream only in the rarest
cases? Or can it be proved, when we dream speeches, that
during sleep a conversation or sounds resembling it reached our
ear ? This possibility I venture decisively to reject.

If, from the common elements of dreams, we get no further,
then let us see what we can do with their differences. Dreams
are often senseless, blurred, absurd ; but there are some that are
meaningful, sober, sensible. Let us see if the latter, the sensible
dreams, can give some information concerning the senseless ones.
I will give you the most recent sensible dream which was told
me, the dream of a young man : "I was promenading in Kartner
Street, met Mr. X. there, whom I accompanied for a bit, and
then I went to a restaurant. Two ladies and a gentleman seated
themselves at my table. I was annoyed at this at first, and
would not look at them. Then I did look, and found that they
were quite pretty." The dreamer adds that the evening before
the dream he had really been in Kartner Street, which is his
usual route, and that he had met Mr. X. there. The other por-
tion of the dream is no direct reminiscence, but bears a certain
resemblance to a previous experience. Or another meaningful
dream, that of a lady. "Her husband asks, 'Doesn't the piano
need tuning?' She: 'It is not worth while; it has to be newly
lined.' ' This dream reproduces without much alteration a
conversation which took place the day before between herself and
her husband. What can we learn from these two sober dreams ?
Nothing but that you find them to be reproductions of daily life
or ideas connected therewith. This would at least be something
if it could be stated of all dreams. There is no question, however,
that this applies to only a minority of dreams. In most dreams
there is no sign of any connection with the previous day, and
no light is thereby cast on the senseless and absurd dream. We

76 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

know omy that we have struck a new problem. We wish to
know not only what it is that the dream says, but when, as in
our examples, the dream speaks plainly, we also wish to know
why and wherefore this recent experience is repeated in the
dream.

I believe you are as tired as I am of continuing attempts like
these. We see, after all, that the greatest interest in a problem
is inadequate if one does not know a path which will lead to a
solution. Up to this point we have not found this path. Experi-
mental psychology gave us nothing but a few very valuable
pieces of information concerning the meaning of stimuli as
dream incitors. We need expect nothing from philosophy except
that lately it has taken haughtily to pointing out to us the in-
tellectual inferiority of our object. Let us not apply to the
occult sciences for help. History and popular tradition tell us
that the dream is meaningful and significant; it sees into the
future. Yet that is hard to accept and surely not demonstrable.
Thus our first efforts end in entire helplessness.

Unexpectedly we get a hint from a quarter toward which we
have not yet looked. Colloquial usage — which after all is not an
accidental thing but the remnant of ancient knowledge, though
it should not be made use of without caution — our speech, that
is to say, recognizes something which curiously enough it calls
"day dreaming." Day dreams are phantasies. They are very
common phenomena, again observable in the normal as well as in
the sick, and access to their study is open to everyone in his
own person. The most conspicuous feature about these phan-
tastic productions is that they have received the name "day
dreams, ' ' for they share neither of the two common elements of
dreams. Their name contradicts the relation to the sleeping
condition, and as regards the second common element, one does
not experience or hallucinate anything, one only imagines it.
One knows that it is a phantasy, that one is not seeing but
thinking the thing. These day dreams appear in the period
before puberty, often as early as the last years of childhood,
continue into the years of maturity, are then either given up
or retained through life. The content of these phantasies is
dominated by very transparent motives. They are scenes and
events in which the egoistic, ambitious and power-seeking desires
of the individual find satisfaction. With young men th* am-

Difficulties and Preliminary Approach 77

bition phantasies generally prevail; in women, the erotic, since
they have banked their ambition on success in love. But often
enough the erotic desire appears in the background with men
too; all the heroic deeds and incidents are after all meant only
to win the admiration and favor of women. Otherwise these
day dreams are very manifold and undergo changing fates.
They are either, each in turn, abandoned after a short time and
replaced by a new one, or they are retained, spun out into
long stories, and adapted to changes in daily circumstances.
They move with the time, so to speak, and receive from it a
"time mark" which testifies to the influence of the new situation.
They are the raw material of poetic production, for out of his
day dreams the poet, with certain transformations, disguises and
omissions, makes the situations which he puts into his novels,
romances and dramas. The hero of the day dreams, however,
is always the individual himself, either directly or by means of
a transparent identification with another.

Perhaps day dreams bear this name because of the similarity
of their relation to reality, in order to indicate that their con-
tent is as little to be taken for real as that of dreams. Perhaps,
however, this identity of names does nevertheless rest on a char-
acteristic of the dream which is still unknown to us, perhaps even
one of those characteristics which we are seeking. It is possible,
on the other hand, that we are wrong in trying to read a meaning
into this similarity of designation. Yet that can only be cleared
up later.

SIXTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation

WE must find a new path, a new method, in order
to proceed with the investigation of the dream.
I shall now make an obvious suggestion. Let us
assume as a hypothesis for everything which fol-
lows, that the dream is not a somatic but a psychic phenomenon.
You appreciate the significance of that statement, but what
justification have we for making it ? None ; but that alone need
not deter us from making it. The matter stands thus: If the
dream is a somatic phenomenon, it does not concern us. It can
be of interest to us only on the supposition that it is a psychic
phenomenon. Let us therefore work upon that assumption in
order to see what comes of it. The result of our labor will
determine whether we are to hold to this assumption and
whether we may, in fact, consider it in turn a result. What is
it that we really wish to achieve, to what end are we working?
It is what one usually seeks to attain in the sciences, an under-
standing of phenomena, the creation of relationships between
them, and ultimately, if possible, the extension of our control
over them.

Let us then proceed with the work on the assumption that the
dream is a psychic phenomenon. This makes it an achievement
and expression of the dreamer, but one that tells us nothing,
one that we do not understand. What do you do when I make
a statement you do not understand? You ask for an explana-
tion, do you not? Why may we not do the same thing here,
ask the dreamer to give us the meaning of his dreamf

If you will remember, we were in this same situation once
before. It was when we were investigating errors, a case of a
slip of the tongue. Someone said: "Da sind dinge zum vor-
tchwein gekommen," whereupon we asked — no, luckily, not

78

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation 79

we, but others, persons in no way associated with psychoanalysis
• — these persons asked him what he meant by this unintelligible
talk. He immediately answered that he had intended to say
"Das war en schweinereien," but that he had suppressed this
intention, in favor of the other, more gentle "Da sind dinge
zum vorschein gekommen. ' '* I explained to you at the time that
this inquiry was typical of every psychoanalytical investigation,
and now you understand that psychoanalysis follows the tech-
nique, as far as possible, of having the subjects themselves dis-
cover the solutions of their riddles. The dreamer himself, then,
is to tell us the meaning of his dream.

It is common knowledge, however, that this is not such an
easy matter with dreams. In the case of slips, our method
worked in a number of cases, but we encountered some where
the subject did not wish to say anything — in fact, indignantly
rejected the answer that we suggested. Instances of the first
method are entirely lacking in the case of dreams ; the dreamer
always says he knows nothing. He cannot deny our interpreta-
tion, for we have none. Shall we then give up the attempt?
Since he knows nothing and we know nothing and a third person
surely knows nothing, it looks as though there were no possibility
of discovering anything. If you wish, discontinue the investiga-
tion. But if you are of another mind, you can accompany me
on the way. For I assure you, it is very possible, in fact,
probable, that the dreamer does know what his dream means,
but does not know that he knows, and therefore believes he does
not know.

You will point out to me that I am again making an assump-
tion, the second in this short discourse, and that I am greatly
reducing the credibility of my claim. On the assumption that
the dream is a psychic phenomenon, on the further assumption
that there are unconscious things in man which he knows without
knowing that he knows, etc. — we need only realize clearly the
intrinsic improbability of each of these two assumptions, and
we shall calmly turn our attention from the conclusions to be
derived from such premises.

Yet, ladies and gentlemen, I have not invited you here to
delude you or to conceal anything from you. I did, indeed,
announce a General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, but I

"Phe reader will recall the example: " things were re-filled."

80 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

did not intend the title to convey that I was an oracle, who would
show you a finished product with all the difficulties carefully
concealed, all the gaps filled in and all the doubts glossed over,
so that you might peacefully believe you had learned something
new. No, precisely because you are beginners, I wanted to show
you our science as it is, with all its hills and pitfalls, demands
and considerations. For I know that it is the same in all sci-
ences, and must be so in their beginnings particularly. I know,
too, that teaching as a rule endeavors to hide these difficulties
and these incompletely developed phases from the student. But
that will not do in psychoanalysis. I have, as a matter of fact,
made two assumptions, one within the other, and he who finds
the whole too troublesome and too uncertain or is accustomed to
greater security or more elegant derivations, need go no further
with us. What I mean is, he should leave psychological problems
entirely alone, for it must be apprehended that he will not find
the sure and safe way he is prepared to go, traversable. Then,
too, it is superfluous for a science that has something to offer
to plead for auditors and adherents. Its results must create its
atmosphere, and it must then bide its time until these have
attracted attention to themselves.

I would warn those of you, however, who care to continue,
that my two assumptions are not of equal worth. The first, that
the dream is a psychic phenomenon, is the assumption we wish
to prove by the results of our work. The other has already been
proved in another field, and I take the liberty only of trans-
ferring it from that field to our problem.

"Where, in what field of observation shall we seek the proof
that there is in man a knowledge of which he is not conscious,
as we here wish to assume in the case of the dreamer? That
would be a remarkable, a surprising fact, one which would
change our understanding of the psychic life, and which would
have no need to hide itself. To name it would be to destroy it,
and yet it pretends to be something real, a contradiction in terms.
Nor does it hide itself. It is no result of the fact itself that we
are ignorant of its existence and have not troubled sufficiently
about it. That is just as little our fault as the fact that all
these psychological problems are condemned by persons who have
kept away from all observations and experiments which are
decisive in this respect.

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation 81

The proof appeared in the field of hypnotic phenomena.
When, in the year 1889, I was a witness to the extraordinarily
enlightening demonstrations of Siebault and Bernheim in Nancy,
I witnessed also the following experiment : If one placed a man
in the somnambulistic state, allowed him to have all manner of
hallucinatory experience, and then woke him up, it appeared in
the first instance that he knew nothing about what had happened
during his hypnotic sleep. Bernheim then directly invited him
to relate what had happened to him during the hypnosis. He
maintained he was unable to recall anything. But Bernheim
insisted, he persisted, he assured him he did know, that he must
recall, and, incredible though it may seem, the man wavered,
began to rack his memory, recalled in a shadowy way first one
of the suggested experiences, then another; the recollection be-
came more and more complete and finally was brought forth
without a gap. The fact that he had this knowledge finally, and
that he had had no experiences from any other source in the
meantime, permits the conclusion that he knew of these recol-
lections in the beginning. They were merely inaccessible, he did
not know that he knew them ; he believed he did not know them.
This is exactly what we suspect in the dreamer.

I trust you are taken by surprise by the establishment of this
fact, and that you will ask me why I did not refer to this proof
before in the case of the slips, where we credited the man who
made a mistake in speech with intentions he knew nothing about
and which he denied. "If a person believes he knows nothing
concerning experiences, the memory of which, however, he
retains," you might say, ''it is no longer so improbable that
there are also other psychic experiences within him of whose
existence he is ignorant. This argument would have impressed
us and advanced us in the understanding of errors." To be
sure, I might then have referred to this but I reserved it for
another place, where it was more necessary. Errors have in a
measure explained themselves, have, in part, furnished us with
the warning that we must assume the existence of psychic
processes of which we know nothing, for the sake of the con-
nection of the phenomena. In dreams we are compelled to look
to other sources for explanations; and besides, I count on the
fact that you will permit the inference I draw from hypnotism
more readily in this instance. The condition in which we make

82 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

mistakes must seem to you to be the normal one. It has no
similarity to the hypnotic. On the other hand, there is a clear
relationship between the hypnotic state and sleep, which is the
essential condition of dreams. Hypnotism is known as artificial
sleep; we say to the person whom we hypnotize, "Sleep," and
the suggestions which we throw out are comparable to the dreams
of natural sleep. The psychical conditions are in both cases
really analogous. In natural sleep we withdraw our attention
from the entire outside world; in the hypnotic, on the other
hand, from the whole world with the exception of the one person
who has hypnotized us, with whom we remain in touch. Further-
more, the so-called nurse's sleep in which the nurse remains in
touch with the child, and can be waked only by him, is a normal
counterpart of hypnotism. The transference of one of the con-
ditions of hypnotism to natural sleep does not appear to be such
a daring proceeding. The inferential assumption that there is
also present in the case of the dreamer a knowledge of his dream,
a knowledge which is so inaccessible that he does not believe it
himself, does not seem to be made out of whole cloth. Let us
note that at this point there appears a third approach to the
study of the dream ; from the sleep-disturbing stimuli, from the
day-dreams, and now in addition, from the suggested dreams of
the hypnotic state.

Now we return, perhaps with increased faith, to our problem.
Apparently it is very probable that the dreamer knows of his
dream; the question is, how to make it possible for him to
discover this knowledge, and to impart it to us? We do not
demand that he give us the meaning of his dream at once, but
he will be able to discover its origin, the thought and sphere of
interest from which it springs. In the case of the errors, you
will remember, the man was asked how he happened to use the
wrong word, "vorschwein," and his next idea gave us the ex-
planation. Our dream technique is very simple, an imitation of
this example. We again ask how the subject happened to have
the dream, and his next statement is again to be taken as an
explanation. We disregard the distinction whether the dreamer
believes or does not believe he knows, and treat both cases in the
same way.

This technique is very simple indeed, but I am afraid it will
arouse your sharpest opposition. You will say, ' ' a new assump-

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation 83

tion. The third! And the most improbable of all! If I ask
the dreamer what he considers the explanation of his dream to
be, his very next association is to be the desired explanation?
But it may be he thinks of nothing at all, or his next thought may
be anything at all. "We cannot understand upon what we can
base such anticipation. This, really, is putting too much faith
in a situation where a slightly more critical attitude would be
more suitable. Furthermore, a dream is not an isolated error,
but consists of many elements. To which idea should we pin
our faith?"

You are right in all the non-essentials. A dream must indeed
be distinguished from a word slip, even in the number of its
elements. The technique is compelled to consider this very care-
fully. Let me suggest that we separate the dream into its
elements, and carry on the investigation of each element sep-
arately ; then the analogy to the word-slip is again set up. You
are also correct when you say that in answer to the separate dream
elements no association may occur to the dreamer. There are
cases in which we accept this answer, and later you will hear
what those cases are. They are, oddly enough, cases in which
we ourselves may have certain associations. But in general we
shall contradict the dreamer when he maintains he has no asso-
ciations. We shall insist that he must have some association
and — we shall be justified. He will bring forth some association,
any one, it makes no difference to us. He will be especially
facile with certain information which might be designated as
historical. He will say, ' ' that is something that happened yester-
day" (as in the two "prosaic" dreams with which we are ac-
quainted) ; or, "that reminds me of something that happened
recently," and in this manner we shall notice that the act of
associating the dreams with recent impressions is much more
frequent than we had at first supposed. Finally, the dreamer
will remember occurrences more remote from the dream, and
ultimately even events in the far past.

But in the essential matters you are mistaken. If you believe
that we assume arbitrarily that the dreamer's next association
will disclose just what we are seeking, or must lead to it, that
on the contrary the association is just as likely to be entirely
inconsequential, and without any connection with what we are
seeking, and that it is an example of my unbounded optimism

84 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

to expect anything else, then you are greatly mistaken. I have
already taken the liberty of pointing out that in each one of you
there is a deep-rooted belief in psychic freedom and volition, a
belief which is absolutely unscientific, and which must capitulate
before the claims of a determinism that controls even the psychic
life. I beg of you to accept it as a fact that only this one associa-
tion will occur to the person questioned. But I do not put one
belief in opposition to another. It can be proved that the asso-
ciation, which the subject produces, is not voluntary, is not
indeterminable, not unconnected with what we seek. Indeed,
I discovered long ago — without, however, laying too much stress
on the discovery — that even experimental psychology has brought
forth this evidence.

I ask you to give your particular attention to the significance
of this subject. If I invite a person to tell me what occurs to
him in relation to some certain element of his dream I am ask-
ing him to abandon himself to free association, controlled ~by a
given premise. This demands a special delimitation of the
attention, quite different from cogitation, in fact, exclusive of
cogitation. Many persons put themselves into such a state
easily ; others show an extraordinarily high degree of clumsiness.
There is a higher level of free association again, where I omit this
original premise and designate only the manner of the associa-
tion, e.g., rule that the subject freely give a proper name or a
number. Such an association would be more voluntary, more in-
determinable, than the one called forth by our technique. But
it can be shown that it is strongly determined each time by an
important inner mental set which, at the moment at which it is
active, is unknown to us, just as unknown as the disturbing
tendencies in the case of errors and the provocative tendencies
in the case of accidental occurrences.

I, and many others after me, have again and again instigated
such investigations for names and numbers which occur to the
subject without any restraint, and have published some results.
The method is the following: Proceeding from the disclosed
names, we awaken continuous associations which then are no
longer entirely free, but rather are limited as are the associations
to the dream elements, and this is true until the impulse is
exhausted. By that time, however, the motivation and signifi-
cance of the free name associations is explained. The investiga-

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation 85

tions always yield the same results, the information often covers
a wealth of material and necessitates lengthy elaboration. The
associations to freely appearing numbers are perhaps the most
significant. They follow one another so quickly and approach
a hidden goal with such inconceivable certainty, that it is really
startling. I want to give you an example of such a name
analysis, one that, happily, involves very little material.

In the course of my treatment of a young man, I referred
to this subject and mentioned the fact that despite the apparent
volition it is impossible to have a name occur which does not
appear to be limited by the immediate conditions, the peculiari-
ties of the subject, and the momentary situation. He was
doubtful, and I proposed that he make such an attempt immedi-
ately. I know he has especially numerous relations of every
sort with women and girls, and so am of the opinion that he will
have an unusually wide choice if he happens to think of a
woman's name. He agrees. To my astonishment, and perhaps
even more to his, no avalanche of women's names descends upon
my head, but he is silent for a time, and then admits that a
single name has occurred to him — and no other: Albino. How
extraordinary, but what associations have you with this name?
How many albinoes do you know? Strangely enough, he knew
no albinoes, and there were no further associations with the
name. One might conclude the analysis had proved a failure;
but no — it was already complete; no further association was
necessary. The man himself had unusually light coloring. In
our talks during the cure I had frequently called him an
albino in fun. We were at the time occupied in determining the
feminine characteristics of his nature. He himself was the
Albino, who at that moment was to him the most interesting
feminine person.

In like manner, melodies, which come for no reason, show
themselves conditioned by and associated with a train of thought
which has a right to occupy one, yet of whose activity one is
unconscious. It is easily demonstrable that the attraction to
the melody is associated with the text, or its origin. But I must
take the precaution not to include in this assertion really musical
people, with whom, as it happens, I have had no experience. In.
their cases the musical meaning of the melody may have occa-
sioned its occurrence. More often the first reason holds. I

86 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

know of a young man who for a time was actually haunted by
the really charming melody of the song of Paris, from The
Beautiful Helen, until the analysis brought to his attention the
fact that at that time his interest was divided between an Ida
and a Helen.

If then the entirely unrestrained associations are conditioned
in such a manner and are arranged in a distinct order, we are
justified in concluding that associations with a single condition,
that of an original premise, or starting point, may be conditioned
to no less degree. The investigation does in fact show that aside
from the conditioning which we have established by the premise,
a second farther dependence is recognizable upon powerful
affective thoughts, upon cycles of interest and complexes of whose
influence we are ignorant, therefore unconscious at the time.

Associations of this character have been the subject matter
of very enlightening experimental investigations, which have
played a noteworthy role in the history of psychoanalysis. The
Wundt school proposed the so-called association-experiment,
wherein the subject is given the task of answering in the quickest
possible time, with any desired reaction, to a given stimulus-
word. It is then possible to study the interval of time that
elapses between the stimulus and the reaction, the nature of the
answer given as reaction, the possible mistake in a subsequent
repetition of the same attempt, and similar matters. The Zurich
School under the leadership of Bleuler and Jung, gave the
explanation of the reactions following the association-experi-
ment, by asking the subject to explain a given reaction by means
of further associations, in the cases where there was anything
extraordinary in the reaction. It then became apparent that
these extraordinary reactions were most sharply determined
by the complexes of the subject. In this matter Bleuler and
Jung built the first bridge from experimental psychology to
psychoanalysis.

Thus instructed, you will be able to say, "We recognize now
that free associations are predetermined, not voluntary, as we
had believed. We admit this also as regards the associations
connected with the elements of the dream, but that is not what
we are concerned with. You maintain that the associations to the
dream element are determined by the unknown psychic back-
ground of this very element. We do not think that this is ?

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation 87

proven fact. We expect, to be sure, that the association to the
dream element will clearly show itself through one of the com-
plexes of the dreamer, but what good is that to us? That does
not lead us to understand the dream, but rather, as in the case
of the association-experiment, to a knowledge of the so-called
complexes. What have these to do with the dream ? ' '

You are right, but you overlook one point, in fact, the very
point because of which I did not choose the association-experi-
ment as the starting point for this exposition. In this experi-
ment the one determinate of the reaction, viz., the stimulus word,
is- voluntarily chosen. The reaction is then an intermediary
between this stimulus word and the recently aroused complex
of the subject. In the dream the stimulus word is replaced by
something that itself has its origin in the psychic life of the
dreamer, in sources unknown to him, hence very likely itself a
product of the complex. It is not an altogether fantastic
hypothesis, then, that the more remote associations, even those
that are connected with the dream element, are determined
by no other complex than the one which determines the dream
element itself, and will lead to the disclosure of the complex.

Let me show you by another case that the situation is really
as we expect it to be. Forgetting proper names is really a
splendid example for the case of dream analysis; only here
there is present in one person what in the dream interpretation
is divided between two persons. Though I have forgotten a
name temporarily I still retain the certainty that I know the
came; that certainty which we could acquire for the dreamer
only by way of the Bernheim experiment. The forgotten name,
however, is not accessible. Cogitation, no matter how strenuous,
does not help. Experience soon tells me that. But I am able
each time to find one or more substitute names for the forgotten
name. If such a substitute name occurs to me spontaneously
then the correspondence between this situation and that of the
dream analysis first becomes evident. Nor is the dream element
the real thing, but only a substitute for something else, for what
particular thing I do not know, but am to discover by means of
the dream anaylsis. The difference lies only in this, that in
forgetting a name I recognize the substitute automatically as
unsuitable, while in the dream element we must acquire this
interpretation with great labor. When a name is forgotten

88 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

too, there is a way to go from the substitute to the unknown
reality, to arrive at the forgotten name. If I centre my atten-
tion on the substitute name and allow further associations to
accumulate, I arrive in a more or less roundabout way at the
forgotten name, and discover that the spontaneous substitute
names, together with those called up by me, have a certain con-
nection with the forgotten name, were conditioned by it.

I want to show you an analysis of this type. One day I
noticed that I could not recall the name of the little country in
the Kiviera of which Monte Carlo is the capital. It is very
annoying, but it is true. I steep myself in all my knowledge
about this country, think of Prince Albert, of the house of
Lusignan, of his marriages, his preference for deep-sea study,
and anything else I can think of, but to no avail. So I give
up the thinking, and in place of the lost name allow substitute
names to suggest themselves. They come quickly — Monte Carlo
itself, then Piedmont, Albania, Montevideo, Colico. Albania is
the first to attract my attention, it is replaced by Montenegro,
probably because of the contrast between black and white. Then
I see that four of these substitutes contain the same syllable
mon. I suddenly have the forgotten word, and cry aloud,
"Monaco." The substitutes really originated in the forgotten
word, the four first from the first syllable, the last brings back
the sequence of syllables and the entire final syllable. In addi-
tion, I am also able easily to discover what it was that took the
name from my memory for a time. Monaco is also the Italian
name of Munich; this latter town exerted the inhibiting in-
fluence.

The example is pretty enough, but too simple. In other cases
we must add to the first substitute names a long line of asso-
ciations, and then the analogy to the dream interpretation be-
comes clearer. I have also had such experiences. Once when a
stranger invited me to drink Italian wine with him, it so hap-
pened in the hostelry that he forgot the name of the wine he
had intended to order just because he had retained a most
pleasant memory of it. Out of a profusion of dissimilar sub-
stitute associations which came to him in the place of the for-
gotten name, I was able to conclude that the memory of some
one named Hedwig had deprived him of the name of the wine,
and he actually confirmed not only that he had first tasted this

Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation 89

wine in the company of a Hedwig, but he also, as a result of this
declaration, recollected the name again. He was at the time
happily married, and this Hedwig belonged to former times,
not now recalled with pleasure.

What is possible in forgetting names must work also in dream
interpretation, viz., making the withheld actuality accessible
by means of substitutions and through connecting associations.
As exemplified by name-forgetting, we may conclude that in the
case of the associations to the dream element they will be de-
termined as well by the dream element as by its unknown
essential. Accordingly, we have advanced a few steps in the
formulation of our dream technique.

SEVENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Manifest Dream Content and Latent Dream Thought

WE have not studied the problem of errors in vain.
Thanks to our efforts in this field, under the con-
ditions known to you, we have evolved two dif-
ferent things, a conception of the elements of the
dream and a technique for dream interpretation. The concep-
tion of the dream element goes to show something unreal, a
substitute for something else, unknown to the dreamer, similar
to the tendency of errors, a substitute for something the dreamer
knows but cannot approach. "We hope to transfer the same
conception to the whole dream, which consists of just such
elements. Our method consists of calling up, by means of free
associations, other substitute formations in addition to these
elements, from which we divine what is hidden.

Let me ask you to permit a slight change in our nomenclature
which will greatly increase the flexibility of our vocabulary.
Instead of hidden, unapproachable, unreal, let us give a truer
description and say inaccessible or unknown to the consciousness
of the dreamer. By this we mean only what the connection
with the lost word or with the interfering intention of the error
can suggest to you, namely, unconscious for the time being,
Naturally in contrast to this we may term conscious the elements
of the dream itself and the substitute formations just gained by
association. As yet there is absolutely no theoretical con-
struction implied in this nomenclature. The use of the word
unconscious as a suitable and intelligible descriptive epithet
is above criticism.

If we transfer our conception from a single element to the
entire dream, we find that the dream as a whole is a distorted
substitute for something else, something unconscious. To dis«

90

Dreams, Manifest Content and Latent Thought 91

cover this unconscious thing is the task of dream interpretation.
From this, three important rules, which we must observe in the
work of dream interpretation, are straightway derived :

1. What the dream seems to say, whether it be sensible or
absurd, clear or confused is not our concern, since it can under
no condition be that unconscious content we are seeking. Later
we shall have to observe an obvious limitation of this rule. 2.
The awakening of substitute formations for each element shall
be the sole object of our work. We shall not reflect on these,
test their suitability or trouble how far they lead away from
the element of the dream. 3. We shall wait until the hidden un-
conscious we are seeking appears of itself, as the missing word
Monaco in the experiment which we have described.

Now we can understand, too, how unimportant it is how much,
how little, above all, how accurately or how indifferently the
dream is remembered. For the dream which is remembered is
not the real one, but a distorted substitute, which is to help us
approach the real dream by awakening other substitute forma-
tions and by making the unconscious in the dream conscious.
Therefore if our recollection of the dream was faulty, it has
simply brought about a further distortion of this substitute, a
distortion which cannot, however, be unmotivated.

One can interpret one 's own dreams as well as those of others.
One learns even more from these, for the process yields more
proof. If we try this, we observe that something impedes the
work. Haphazard ideas arise, but we do not let them have their
way. Tendencies to test and to choose make themselves felt.
As an idea occurs, we say to ourselves "No, that does not fit,
that does not belong here"; of a second "that is too senseless";
of a third, "this is entirely beside the point"; and one can
easily observe how the ideas are stifled and suppressed by these
objections, even before they have become entirely clear. On
the one hand, therefore, too much importance is attached to the
dream elements themselves; on the other, the result of free
association is vitiated by the process of selection. If you are not
interpreting the dream alone, if you allow someone else to
interpret it for you, you will soon discover another motive which
induces you to make this forbidden choice. At times you say
to yourself, "No, this idea is too unpleasant, I either will not or
cannot divulge this. ' '

92 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Clearly these objections are a menace to the success of our
work. We must guard against them, in our own case by the
firm resolve not to give way to them ; and in the interpretation
of the dreams of others by making the hard and fast rule for
them, never to omit any idea from their account, even if one of
the following four objections should arise: that is, if it should
seem too unimportant, absurd, too irrelevant or too embarrassing
to relate. The dreamer promises to obey this rule, but it is
annoying to see how poorly he keeps his promise at times. At
first we account for this by supposing that in spite of the
authoritative assurance which has been given to the dreamer,
he is not impressed with the importance of free association, and
plan perhaps to win his theoretic approval by giving him
papers to read or by sending him to lectures which are to make
him a disciple of our views concerning free association. But
we are deterred from such blunders by the observation that, in
one's own case, where convictions may certainly be trusted, the
same critical objections arise against certain ideas, and can only
be suppressed subsequently, upon second thought, as it were.

Instead of becoming vexed at the disobedience of the dreamer,
these experiences can be turned to account in teaching some-
thing new, something which is the more important the less we
are prepared for it. We understand that the task of inter-
preting dreams is carried on against a certain resistance which
manifests itself by these critical objections. This resistance is
independent of the theoretical conviction of the dreamer. Even
more is apparent. We discover that such a critical objection is
never justified. On the contrary, those ideas which we are so
anxious to suppress, prove tvithout exception to be the most
important, the most decisive, in the search for the unconscious.
It is even a mark of distinction if an idea is accompanied by
such an objection.

This resistance is something entirely new, a phenomenon which
we have found as a result of our hypotheses although it was
not originally included in them. We are not too pleasantly sur-
prised by this new factor in our problem. We suspect that it will
not make our work any easier. It might even tempt us to
abandon our entire work in connection with the dream. Such
an unimportant thing as the dream and in addition such diffi-
culties instead of a smooth technique ! But from another point

Dreams, Manifest Content and Latent Thought 93

of view, these same difficulties may prove fascinating, and sug-
gest that the work is worth the trouble. Whenever we try to
penetrate to the hidden unconscious, starting out from the sub-
stitute which the dream element represents, we meet with re-
sistance. Hence, we are justified in supposing that something
of weight must be hidden behind the substitute. What other
reason could there be for the difficulties which are maintained
for purposes of concealment ? If a child does not want to open
his clenched fist, he is certainly hiding something he ought not
to have.

Just as soon as we bring the dynamic representation of re-
sistance into our consideration of the case, we must realize that
this factor is something quantitatively variable. There may be
greater or lesser resistances and we are prepared to see these
differences in the course of our work. We may perhaps connect
this with another experience found in the work of dream in-
terpretation. For sometimes only one or two ideas serve to
carry us from the dream element to its unconscious aspect,
while at other times long chains of associations and the sup-
pression of many critical objections are necessary. We shall
note that these variations are connected with the variable force
of resistance. This observation is probably correct. If re-
sistance is slight, then the substitute is not far removed from
the unconscious, but strong resistance carries with it a great
distortion of the unconscious and in addition a long journey
back to it.

Perhaps the time has come to take a dream and try out our
method to see if our faith in it shall be confirmed. But which
dream shall we choose? You cannot imagine how hard it is
for me to decide, and at this point I cannot explain the source
of the difficulty. Of course, there must be dreams which, as a
whole, have suffered slight distortion, and it would be best to
start with one of these. But which dreams are the least dis-
torted? Those which are sensible and not confused, of which
I have already given you two examples ? This would be a gross
misunderstanding. Testing shows that these dreams have suf-
fered by distortion to an exceptionally high degree. But if I
take the first best dream, regardless of certain necessary con-
ditions, you would probably be very much disappointed. Per-
haps we should have to note such an abundance of ideas in

94 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

connection with single elements of dream that it would be
absolutely impossible to review the work in perspective. If we
write the dream out and confront it with the written account
of all the ideas which arise in connection with it, these may
easily amount to a reiteration of the text of the dream. It
would therefore seem most practical to choose for analysis sev-
eral short dreams of which each one can at least reveal or con-
firm something. This is what we shall decide upon, provided
experience should not point out where we shall really find
slightly distorted dreams.

But I know of another way to simplify matters, one which,
moreover, lies in our path. Instead of attempting the interpre-
tation of entire dreams, we shall limit ourselves to single dream
elements and by observing a series of examples we shall see
how these are explained by the application of our method.

1. A lady relates that as a child she often dreamt "ihat God
had a pointed paper hat on his head." How do you expect to
understand that without the help of the dreamer? Why, it
sounds quite absurd. It is no longer absurd when the lady
testifies that as a child she was frequently made to wear such
a hat at the table, because she could not help stealing glances at
the plates of her brothers and sisters to see if one of them had
gotten more than she. The hat was therefore supposed to act
as a sort of blinder. This explanation was moreover historic,
and given without the least difficulty. The meaning of this
fragment and of the whole brief dream, is clear with the help
of a further idea of the dreamer. " Since I had heard that God
was all-knowing and all-seeing," she said, "the dream can only
mean that I know everything and see everything just as God
does, even when they try to prevent me." This example is
perhaps too simple.

2. A sceptical patient has a longer dream, in which certain
people happen to tell her about my book concerning laughter
and praise it highly. Then something is mentioned about a
certain " ' canal,' perhaps another book in which < canal' occurs,
or something else with the word 'canal' . . . she doesn't know
. . . it is all confused."

Now you will be inclined to think that the element "canal"
will evade interpretation because it is so vague. You are right
as to the supposed difficulty, but it is not difficult because it is

Dreams, Manifest Content and Latent THought 95

vague, but rather it is vague for a different reason, the same
reason which also makes the interpretation difficult. The
dreamer can think of nothing concerning the word canal, I
naturally can think of nothing. A little while later, as a matter
of fact on the next day, she tells me that something occurred
to her that may perhaps be related to it, a joke that she has
heard. On a ship between Dover and Calais a well-known
author is conversing with an Englishman, who quoted the follow-
ing proverb in a certain connection: "Du sublime au ridicule,
U n'y a qu'un pas."1 The author answers, "Oui, le pas de
Calais/'2 with which he wishes to say -that he finds France sub-
lime and England ridiculous. But the "Pas de Calais" is really
a canal, namely, the English Channel. Do I think that this
idea has anything to do with the dream? Certainly, I believe
that it really gives the solution to the puzzling dream fragments.
Or can you doubt that this joke was already present in the
dream, as the unconscious factor of the element, " canal." Can
you take it for granted that it was subsequently added to it?
The idea testifies to the scepticism which is concealed behind
her obtrusive admiration, and the resistance is probably the
common reason for both phenomena, for the fact that the idea
came so hesitatingly and that the decisive element of the dream
turned out to be so vague. Kindly observe at this point the
relation of the dream element to its unconscious factor. It is
like a small part of the unconscious, like an allusion to it;
through its isolation it became quite unintelligible.

3. A patient dreams, in the course of a longer dream:
"Around a table of peculiar shape several members of his family
are sitting, etc." In connection with this table, it occurs to him
that he saw such a piece of furniture during a visit to a certain
family. Then his thoughts continue : In this family a peculiar
relation had existed between father and son, and soon he adds
to this that as a matter of fact the same relation exists between
himself and his father. The table is therefore taken up into
the dream to designate this parallel.

This dreamer had for a long time been familiar with the claims
of dream interpretation. Otherwise he might have taken ex-
ception to the fact that so trivial a detail as the shape of a table

'From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a narrow passage.
*Yes, the passage from Calais.

96 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ghould be taken as the basis of the investigation. As a matter
of fact we judge nothing in the dream as accidental or in-
different, and we expect to reach our conclusion by the explana-
tion of just such trivial and unmotivated details. Perhaps you
will be surprised that the dream work should arouse the thought
"we are in exactly the same position as they are," just by the
choice of the table. But even this becomes clear when you
learn that the name of the family in question is Tischler. By
permitting his own family to sit at such a table, he intends to
express that they too are Tischler. Please note how, in
relating such a dream interpretation, one must of necessity
become indiscreet. Here you have arrived at one of the diffi-
culties in the choice of examples that I indicated before. I
could easily have substituted another example for this one, but
would probably have avoided this indiscretion at the cost ot
committing another one in its place.

The time has come to introduce two new terms, which we
could have used long ago. We shall call that which the dream
relates, the manifest content of the dream ; that which is hidden,
which we can only reach by the analysis of ideas we shall call
latent dream thoughts. We may now consider the connection
between the manifest dream content and the latent dream
thoughts as they are revealed in these examples. Many different
connections can exist. In examples 1 and 2 the manifest con-
tent is also a constituent part of the latent thought, but only
a very small part of it. A small piece of a great composite
psychic structure in the unconscious dream thought has pene-
trated into the manifest dream, like a fragment of it, or in
other cases, like an allusion to it, like a catchword or an
abbreviation in the telegraphic code. The interpretation must
mould this fragment, or indication, into a whole, as was done
most successfully in example 2. One sort of distortion of which
the dream mechanism consists is therefore substitution by means
of a fragment or an allusion. In the third, moreover, we must
recognize another relation which we shall see more clearly and
distinctly expressed in the following examples:

4. The dreamer "pulls a certain woman of his acquaintance
from behind a 'bed." He finds the meaning of this dream ele-
ment himself by his first association. It means: This woman
"has a pull" with him.1
1"Vorzug." "Vom Bett hervorziehen. "

Dreams, Manifest Content and Latent Thought 97

5. Another man dreams that "his brother is in a closet."
The first association substitutes clothes-press for closet, and the
second gives the meaning: his brother is close-pressed for
money.2

6. The dreamer "climbs a mountain from the top of which
he has an extraordinarily distant view." This sounds quite
sensible; perhaps there is nothing about it that needs interpre-
tation, and it is simply necessary to find out which reminiscence
this dream touches upon and why it was recalled. But you are
mistaken; it is evident that this dream requires interpretation
as well as any other which is confused. For no previous
mountain climbing of his own occurs to the dreamer, but he
remembers that an acquaintance of his is publishing a "Rund-
schau," which deals with our relation to the furthermost parts
of the earth. The latent dream thought is therefore in this case
an identification of the dreamer with the " Rundschauer."

Here you find a new type of connection between the manifest
content and the latent dream element. The former is not so much
a distortion of the latter as a representation of it, a plastic
concrete perversion that is based on the sound of the word.
However, it is for this very reason again a distortion, for we
have long ago forgotten from which concrete picture the word
has arisen, and therefore do not reocgnize it by the image which
is substituted for it. If you consider that the manifest dream
consists most often of visual images, and less frequently of
thoughts and words, you can imagine that a very particular
significance in dream formation is attached to this sort of rela-
tion. You can also see that in this manner it becomes possible
to create substitute formations for a great number of abstract
thoughts in the manifest dream, substitutions that serve the pur-
pose of further concealment all the same. This is the technique
of our picture puzzle. What the origin is of the semblance of
wit which accompanies such representations is a particular ques-
tion which we need not touch upon at this time.

A fourth type of relation between the manifest and the latent
dream cannot be dealt with until its cue in the technique has
been given. Even then I shall not have given you a complete
enumeration, but it will be sufficient for our purpose.

Have you the courage to venture upon the interpretation of

•"Schrankt sich ein."

98 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

an entire dream? Let us see if we are well enough equipped
for this undertaking. Of course, I shall not choose one of the
most obscure, but one nevertheless that shows in clear outline
the general characteristics of a dream.

A young woman who has been married for many years dreams :
"She is sitting in the theatre with her husband; one side of the
orchestra is entirely unoccupied. Her husband tells her that
Elise L. and her bridegroom had also wished to come, but had
only been able to procure poor seats, three for 1 FL, 50 Kr.
and those of course they could not take. She thinks this is no
misfortune for them."

The first thing that the dreamer has to testify is that the
occasion for the dream is touched upon in its manifest content.
Her husband had really told her that Elise L., an acquaintance
of about her age, had become engaged. The dream is the .reac-
tion to this news. We already know that in the case of many
dreams it is easy to trace such a cause to the preceding day, and
that the dreamer often gives these deductions without any
difficulty. The dreamer also places at our disposal further
information for other parts of the manifest dream content.
Whence the detail that one side of the orchestra is unoccupied ?
It is an allusion to an actual occurrence of the previous week.
She had made up her mind to go to a certain performance and
had procured tickets in advance, so much in advance that she
had been forced to pay a preference tax.3 When she arrived at
the theatre, she saw how needless had been her anxiety, for one
side of the orchestra was almost empty. She could have bought
the tickets on the day of the performance itself. Her husband
would not stop teasing her about her excessive haste. Whence
the 1 Fl. 50 Kr.? From a very different connection that
has nothing to do with the former, but which also alludes to an
occurrence of the previous day. Her sister-in-law had received
150 florins as a present from her husband, and knew no better,
the poor goose, than to hasten to the jeweler and spend the
money on a piece of jewelry. Whence the number 3 ? She can
think of nothing in connection with this unless one stresses the
association that the bride, Elise L., is only three months younger

1 In Germany tickets may be bought before the day of the performance
only upon additional payment, over and above /the regular cost of the
ticket. This is called " Vorverkauf sgebiihr. "

Dreams, Manifest Content and Latent Thought 99

than she herself, who has been married for almost ten years.
And the absurdity of buying three tickets for two people ? She
says nothing of thlg, and indeed denies all further associations
or information.

But she has given us so much material in her few associations,
that it becomes possible to derive the latent dream thought
from it. It must strike us that in her remarks concerning the
dream, time elements which constitute a common element in the
various parts of this material appear at several points. She
attended to the tickets too soon, took them too hastily, so that she
had to pay more than usual for them ; her sister-in-law likewise
hastened to carry her money to the jeweler's to buy a piece of
jewelry, just as if she might miss it. Let us add to the expres-
sions "too early," "precipitately," which are emphasized so
strongly, the occasion for the dream, namely, that her friend
only three months younger than herself had even now gotten a
good husband, and the criticism expressed in the condemnation
of her sister-in-law, that it was foolish to hurry so. Then the
following construction of the latent dream thought, for which
the manifest dream is a badly distorted substitute, comes to us
almost spontaneously:

' ' How foolish it was of me to hurry so in marrying ! Elise 's
example shows me that I could have gotten a husband later too."
(The precipitateness is represented by her own behavior in
buying the tickets, and that of her sister-in-law in purchasing
jewelry. Going to the theatre was substituted for getting mar-
ried. This appears to have been the main thought ; and perhaps
we may continue, though with less certainty, because the analysis
in these parts is not supported by statements of the dreamer.)
"And I would have gotten 100 times as much for my money."
(150 Fl. is 100 times as much as 1 Fl. 50 Kr.). If we might
substitute the dowry for the money, then it would mean that
one buys a husband with a dowry; the jewelry as well as the
poor seats would represent the husband. It would be even more
desirable if the fragment "3 seats" had something to do with
a husband. But our understanding does not penetrate so far.
"We have only guessed that the dream expresses her disparage-
ment of her own husband, and her regret at having married so
early.

It is my opinion that we are more surprised and confused than

100 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

satisfied by the result of this first dream interpretation. We are
swamped by more impressions than we can master. We see that
the teachings of dream interpretation are not easily exhausted.
Let us hasten to select those points that we recognize as giving
us new, sound insight.

In the first place, it is remarkable that in the latent thought
the main emphasis falls on the element of haste ; in the manifest
dream there is absolutely no mention of this to be found. With-
out the analysis we should not have had any idea that this ele-
ment was of any importance at all. So it seems possible that
just the main thing, the central point of the unconscious
thoughts, may be absent in the manifest dream. Because of this,
the original impression in the dream must of necessity be en-
tirely changed. Secondly: In the dream there is a senseless
combination, 3 for 1 Fl. 50 Kr. ; in the dream thought we divine,
the sentence, "It was senseless (to marry so early)." Can one
deny that this thought, "It was senseless," was represented in
the manifest dream by the introduction of an absurd element?
Thirdly: Comparison will show that the relation between the
manifest and latent elements is not simple, certainly not of
such a sort that a manifest element is always substituted for the
latent. There must rather be a quantitative relationship be-
tween the two groups, according to which a manifest element
may represent several latent ones, or a latent element repre-
sented by several manifest elements.

Much that is surprising might also be said of the sense of the
dream and the dreamer's reaction to it. She acknowledges the
interpretation but wonders at it. She did not know that she
disparaged her husband so, and she did not know why she should
disparage him to such a degree. There is still much that is
incomprehensible. I really believe that we are not yet fully
equipped for dream interpretation, and that we must first re-
ceive further instruction and preparation.

EIGHTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Dreams of Childhood

WE think we have advanced too rapidly. Let us go
back a little. Before our last attempt to overcome
the difficulties of dream distortion through our
technique, we had decided that it would be best to
avoid them by limiting ourselves only to those dreams in which
distortion is either entirely absent or of trifling importance, if
there are such. But here again we digress from the history of the
evolution of our knowledge, for as a matter of fact we become
aware of dreams entirely free of distortion only after the con-
sistent application of our method of interpretation and after
complete analysis of the distorted dream.

The dreams we are looking for are found in children. They
are short, clear, coherent, easy to understand, unambiguous, and
yet unquestionable dreams. But do not think that all children 's
dreams are like this. Dream distortion makes its appearance
very early in childhood, and dreams of children from five to
eight years of age have been recorded that showed all the char-
acteristics of later dreams. But if you will limit yourselves to
the age beginning with conscious psychic activity, up to the
fourth or fifth year, you will discover a series of dreams that
are of a so-called infantile character. In a later period of
childhood you will be able to find some dreams of this nature
occasionally. Even among adults, dreams that closely resemble
the typically infantile ones occur under certain conditions.

From these children's dreams we gain information concerning
the nature of dreams with great ease and certainty, and we
hope it will prove decisive and of universal application.

1. For the understanding of these dreams we need no analysis,
no technical methods. "We need not question the child that is
giving an account of his dream. But one must add to this a

101

102 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

story taken from the life of the child. An experience of the
previous day will always explain the dream to us. The dream is
a sleep-reaction of psychic life upon these experiences of the
day.

We shall now consider a few examples so that we may base
our further deductions upon them.

o) . A boy of 22 months is to present a basket of cherries as a
birthday gift. He plainly does so very unwillingly, although
they promise him that he will get some of them himself. The
next morning he relates as his dream, "Hermann eat all
cherries."

&). A little girl of three and a quarter years makes her first
trip across a lake. At the landing she does not want to leave the
boat and cries bitterly. The time of the trip seems to her to
have passed entirely too rapidly. The next morning she says,
"Last night I rode on the lake." We may add the supple-
mentary fact that this trip lasted longer.

c). A boy of five and a quarter years is taken on an excursion
into the Escherntal near Hallstatt. He had heard that Hallstatt
lay at the foot of the Dachstein, and had shown great interest in
this mountain. From his home in Aussee there was a beautiful
view of the Dachstein, and with a telescope one could discern
the Simonyhiitte upon it. The child had tried again and again
to see it through the telescope, with what result no one knew.
He started on the excursion in a joyously expectant mood.
Whenever a new mountain came in sight the boy asked, ' ' Is that
the Dachstein?" The oftener this question was answered in the
negative, the more moody he became; later he became entirely
silent and would not take part in a small climb to a waterfall.
They thought he was overtired, but the next morning, he said
quite happily, "Last night I dreamed that we were in the
Simonyhiitte." It was with this expectation, therefore, that he
had taken part in the excursion. The only detail he gave was
one he had heard before, "you had to climb steps for six hours."

These three dreams will suffice for all the information we
desire.

2. We see that children's dreams are not meaningless; they
are intelligible, significant, psychic acts. You will recall what I
represented to you as the medical opinion concerning the dream,
the simile of untrained fingers wandering aimlessly over the

Dreams of Childhood 103

keys of the piano. You cannot fail to see how decidedly these
dreams of childhood are opposed to this conception. But it
would be strange indeed if the child brought forth complete
psychic products in sleep, while the adult in the same condition
contents himself with spasmodic reactions. Indeed, we have
every reason to attribute the more normal and deeper sleep to
the child.

3. Dream distortion is lacking in these dreams, therefore they
need no interpretation. The manifest and latent dreams are
merged. Dream distortion is therefore not inherent in the
dream. I may assume that this relieves you of a great burden.
But upon closer consideration we shall have to admit of a tiny
bit of distortion, a certain differentiation between manifest
dream content and latent dream thought, even in these dreams.

4. The child's dream is a reaction to an experience of the day,
which has left behind it a regret, a longing or an unfulfilled
desire. The dream brings about the direct unconcealed fulfill'
ment of this wish. Now recall our discussions concerning the
importance of the role of external or internal bodily stimuli as
disturbers of sleep, or as dream producers. "We learned definite
facts about this, but could only explain a very small number
of dreams in this way. In these children's dreams nothing
points to the influence of such somatic stimuli; we cannot be
mistaken, for the dreams are entirely intelligible and easy to
survey. But we need not give up the theory of physical causa-
tion entirely on this account. We can only ask why at the outset
we forgot that besides the physical stimuli there are also psychic
sleep-disturbing stimuli. For we know that it is these stimuli
that commonly cause the disturbed sleep of adults by preventing
them from producing the ideal condition of sleep, the with-
drawal of interest from the world. The dreamer does not wish
to interrupt his life, but would rather continue his work with
the things that occupy him, and for this reason he does not sleep.
The unfulfilled wish, to which he reacts by means of the dream,
is the psychic sleep-disturbing stimulus for the child.

5. From this point we easily arrive at an explanation of the
function of the dream. The dream, as a reaction to the psychic
stimulus, must have the value of a release of this stimulus which
results in its elimination and in the continuation of sleep. We
do not know how this release is made possible bv the dream, but

104 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

we note that the dream is not a disturber of sleep, as calumny
says, but a guardian of sleep, whose duty it is to quell disturb-
ances. It is true, we think we would have slept better if we had
not dreamt, but here we are wrong; as a matter of fact, we
would not have slept at all without the help of the dream. That
we have slept so soundly is due to the dream alone. It could
not help disturbing us slightly, just as the night watchman often
cannot avoid making a little noise while he drives away the
rioters who would awaken us with their noise.

6. One main characteristic of the dream is that a wish is its
source, and that the content of the dream is the gratification of
this wish. Another equally consent feature is that the dream
does not merely express a thought, but also represents the ful-
fillment of this wish in the form of a hallucinatory experience,
"I should like to travel on the lake," says the wish that excites
the dream; the dream itself has as its content "I travel on the
lake." One distinction between the latent and manifest dream,
a distortion of the latent dream thought, therefore remains even
in the case of these simple children 's dreams, namely, the transla-
tion of the thought into experience. In the interpretation of the
dream it is of utmost importance that this change be traced
back. If this should prove to be an extremely common charac-
teristic of the dream, then the above mentioned dream fragment,
"/ see my brother in a closet" could not be translated, "My
brother is close-pressed," but rather, "I wish that my brother
were close-pressed, my brother should be close-pressed." Of the
two universal characteristics of the dream we have cited, the
second plainly has greater prospects of unconditional acknowl-
edgment than the first. Only extensive investigation can ascer-
tain that the cause of the dream must always be a wish, and
cannot also be an anxiety, a plan or a reproach; but this does
not alter the other characteristic-, that the dream does not simply
reproduce the stimulus but by experiencing it anew, as it were,
removes, expells and settles it.

7. In connection with these characteristics of the dream we can
again resume the comparison between the dream and the error.
In the case of the latter we distinguish an interfering tendency
and one interfered with, and the error is the compromise between
the two. The dream fits into the same scheme. The tendency

Dreams of Childhood 105

interfered with, in this case, can be no other than that of sleep.
For the interfering tendency we substitute the psychic stimulus,
the wish which strives for its fulfillment, let us say, for thus far
we are not familiar with any other sleep-disturbing psychic
stimulus. In this instance also the dream is the result of com-
promise. We sleep, and yet we experience the removal of a
wish ; we gratify the wish, but at the same time continue to sleep.
Both are partly carried out and partly given up.

8. You will remember that we once hoped to gain access to the
understanding of the dream problem by the fact that certain
very transparent phantasy formations are called day dreams.
Now these day dreams are actual wish fulfillments, fulfillments
of ambitious or erotic wishes with which we are familiar; but
they are conscious, and though vividly imagined, they are never
hallucinatory experiences. In this instance, therefore, the less
firmly established of the two main characteristics of the dream
holds, while the other proves itself entirely dependent upon
the condition of sleep and impossible to the waking state. In
colloquial usage, therefore, there is a presentment of the fact
that the fulfillment of a wish is a main characteristic of the
dream. Furthermore, if the experience in the dream is a trans-
formed representation only made possible by the condition of
sleep — in other words, a sort of nocturnal day dream — then we
can readily understand that the occurrence of phantasy forma-
tions can release the nocturnal stimulus and bring satisfaction.
For day dreaming is an activity closely bound up in gratification
and is, indeed, pursued only for this reason.

Not only this but other colloquial usages also express the same
feeling. Well-known proverbs say, "The pig dreams of acorns,
the goose of maize, ' ' or ask, ' ' Of what does the hen dream ? Of
millet." So the proverb descends even lower than we do, from
the child to the animal, and maintains that the content of a
dream is the satisfaction of a need. Many turns of speech seem
to point to the same thing — "dreamlike beauty," "I should
never have dreamed of that," "in my wildest dreams I hadn't
imagined that." This is open partisanship on the part of col-
loquial usage. For there are also dreams of fear and dreams
of embarrassing or indifferent content, but they have not been
drawn into common usage. It is true that common usage
recognizes "bad" dreams, but still the dream plainly connotates

106 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

to it only the beautiful wish fulfillment. There is indeed no
proverb that tells us that the pig or the goose dreams of being
slaughtered.

Of course it is unbelievable that the wish-fulfillment charac-
teristic has not been noted by writers on the dream. Indeed,
this was very often the case, but none of them thought of ac-
knowledging this characteristic as universal and of making it
the basis of an explanation of the dream. We can easily
imagine what may have deterred them and shall discuss it sub-
sequently.

See what an abundance of information we have gained, with
almost no effort, from the consideration of children's dreams —
the function of the dream as a guardian of sleep ; its origin from
two rival tendencies, of which the one, the longing for sleep,
remains constant, while the other tries to satisfy a psychic stimu-
lus ; the proof that the dream is a significant psychic act ; its two
main characteristics: wish fulfillment and hallucinatory ex-
perience. And we were almost able to forget that we are
engaged in psychoanalysis. Aside from its connection with
errors our work has no specific connotation. Any psychologist,
who is entirely ignorant of the claims of psychoanalysis, could
have given this explanation of children's dreams. Why has no
one done so ?

If there were only infantile dreams, our problem would be
solved, our task accomplished, and that without questioning the
dreamer, or approaching the unconscious, and without taking
free association into consideration. The continuation of our task
plainly lies in this direction. We have already repeatedly had
the experience that characteristics that at first seemed uni-
versally true, have subsequently held good only for a certain
kind and for a certain number of dreams. It is therefore for us
to decide whether the common characteristics which we have
gathered from children's dreams can be applied universally,
whether they also hold for those dreams that are not transparent,
whose manifest content shows no connection with wishes left
over from the previous day. We think that these dreams have
undergone considerable distortion and for this reason are not
to be judged superficially. We also suspect that for the ex-
planation of this distortion we shall need the psychoanalytic

Dreams of Childhood 107

method which we could dispense with in the understanding of
children's dreams.

There is at any rate a class of dreams that are undistorted,
and, just like children's dreams, are easily recognizable as wish
fulfillments. It is those that are called up throughout life by
the imperative needs of the body — hunger, thirst, sexual desire —
hence wish fulfillments in reaction to internal physical stimuli.
For this reason, I have noted the dream of a young girl,

that consisted of a menu following her name (Anna F ,

strawberry, huckleberry, egg-dish, pap), as a reaction to an
enforced day of fasting on account of a spoiled stomach, which
was directly traceable to the eating of the fruits twice mentioned
in the dream. At the same time, the grandmother, whose age
added to that of her grandchild would make a full seventy, had
to go without food for a day on account of kidney-trouble, and
dreamed the same night that she had been invited out and that
the finest tid-bits had been set before her. Observations with
prisoners who are allowed to go hungry, or with people who
suffer privations on travels or expeditions, show that under these
conditions the dreams regularly deal with the satisfaction of
these needs. Otto Nordenskjold, in his book Antarctic (1904),
testifies to the same thing concerning his crew, who were ice-
bound with him during the winter (Vol. 1, page 336). "Very
significant in determining the trend of our inmost thoughts were
our dreams, which were never more vivid and numerous than
just at this time. Even those of our comrades who ordinarily
dreamed but seldom, now had long stories to tell, when in the
morning we exchanged our latest experiences in that realm of
phantasy. All of them dealt with that outside world that now
was so far away from us, but often they fitted into our present
condition. Food and drink were most often the pivots about
which our dreams revolved. One of us, who excelled in going to
great dinners in his sleep, was most happy whenever he could
tell us in the morning that he attended a dinner of three courses ;
another one dreamed of tobacco, whole mountains of tobacco;
still another dreamed of a ship that came along on the open sea,
under full sail. One other dream deserves mention : The postman
comes with the mail and gives a long explanation of why it is so
late ; he had delivered it to the wrong address and only after great
trouble on his part had succeeded in getting it back. Of course one

108 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

occupies himself with even more impossible things in sleep, but in
nearly all the dreams that I myself dreamed or heard tell of, the
lack of phantasy was quite striking. It would surely be of
great psychological interest if all these dreams were recorded.
It is easy to understand how we longed for sleep, since it could
offer us everything for which each one of us felt the most burning
desire." I quote further from Du Prel. "Mungo Park, who
during a trip in Africa was almost exhausted, dreamed without
interruption of the fertile valleys and fields of his home. Trenck,
tortured by hunger in the redoubt at Magdeburg, likewise saw
himself surrounded by wonderful meals, and George Back, who
took part in Franklin's first expedition, dreamed regularly and
consistently of luxurious meals when, as a result of terrible
privations, he was nearly dead of hunger."

A man who feels great thirst at night after enjoying highly
seasoned food for supper, often dreams that he is drinking. It
is of course impossible to satisfy a rather strong desire for food
or drink by means of the dream ; from such a dream one awakes
thirsty and must now drink real water. The effect of the dream
is in this case practically trifling, but it is none the less clear
that it was called up for the purpose of maintaining the sleep
in spite of the urgent impulse to awake and to act. Dreams of
satisfaction often overcome needs of a lesser intensity.

In a like manner, under the influence of sexual stimuli, the
dream brings about satisfaction that shows noteworthy peculiari-
ties. As a result of the characteristic of the sexual urge which
makes it somewhat less dependent upon its object than hunger
and thirst, satisfaction in a dream of pollution may be an actual
one, and as a result of difficulties to be mentioned later in con-
nection with the object, it happens especially often that the
actual satisfaction is connected with confused or distorted dream
content. This peculiarity of the dream of pollution, as 0. Rank
has observed, makes it a fruitful subject to pursue in the study
of dream distortion. Moreover, all dreams of desire of adults
usually contain something besides satsf action, something that has
its origin in the sources of the purely psychic stimuli, and which
requires interpretation to render it intelligible.

Moreover we shall not maintain that the wish-fulfillment
dreams of the infantile kind occur in adults only as reactions
to the known imperative desires. We also know of short clear

Dreams of Childhood 109

dreams of this sort under the influence of dominating situations
that arise from unquestionably psychic sources. As, for ex-
ample, in dreams of impatience, whenever a person has made
preparations for a journey, for a theatrical performance, for a
lecture or for a visit, and now dreams of the anticipated fulfill-
ment of his expectations, and so arrives at his goal the night
before the actual experience, in the theatre or in conversation
with his host. Or the well-named dreams of comfort, when a
person who likes to prolong his sleep, dreams that he is already
up, is washing himself, or is already in school, while as a matter
of fact he continues sleeping, hence would rather get up in a
dream than in reality. The desire for sleep which we have
recognized as a regular part of the dream structure becomes
intense in these dreams and appears in them as the actual
shaping force of the dream. The wish for sleep properly takes
its place beside other great physical desires.

At this point I refer you to a picture by Schwind, from the
Schack Gallery in Munich, so that you may see how rightly the
artist has conceived the origin of a dream from a dominating
situation. It is the Dream of a, Prisoner? which can have no
other subject than his release. It is a very neat stroke that the
release should be effected through the window, for the ray of
light that awakens the prisoner comes through the same window.
The gnomes standing one above the other probably represent
the successive positions which he himself had to take in climbing
to the height of the window, and I do not think I am mistaken
or that I attribute too much preconcerted design to the artist,
by noting that the uppermost of the gnomes, who is filing the
grating (and so does what the prisoner would like to do) has
the features of the prisoner.

In all other dreams except those of children and those of the
infantile type, distortion, as we have said, blocks our way. At
the outset we cannot ascertain whether they are also wish fulfill-
ments, as we suspect; from their manifest content we cannot
determine from what psychic stimulus they derive their origin,
and we cannot prove that they also are occupied in doing away
with the stimulus and in satisfying it. They must probably be
interpreted, that is, translated; their distortion must be an-
nulled ; their manifest content replaced by their latent thought
before we can judge whether what we have found in children's
dreams may claim a universal application for all dreams.

1 See frontispiece.

NINTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

The Dream Censor

WE have learned to know the origin, nature and
function of the dream from the study of children 's
dreams. Dreams are the removal of sleep-disturb-
ing psychic stimuli by way of hallucinated satis-
faction. Of adults' dreams, to be sure, we could explain only
one group, what we characterized as dreams of an infantile type.
As to the others we know nothing as yet, nor do we understand
them. For the present, however, we have obtained a result whose
significance we do not wish to under-estimate. Every time a
dream is completely comprehensible to us, it proves to be an
hallucinated wish-fulfillment. This coincidence cannot be acci-
dental, nor is it an unimportant matter.

We conclude, on the basis of various considerations and by
analogy to the conception of mistakes, that another type of
dream is a distorted substitute for an unknown content and
that it must first be led back to that content. Our next task
is the investigation and the understanding of this dream
distortion.

Dream distortion is the thing which makes the dream seem
strange and incomprehensible to us. We want to know several
things about it ; firstly, whence it comes, its dynamics ; secondly,
what it does; and finally, how it does it. We can say at this
point that dream distortion is the product of the dream work,
that is, of the mental functioning of which the dream itself is
the conscious symptom. Let us describe the dream work and
trace it back to the forces which work upon it.

And now I shall ask you to listen to the following dream.
It was recorded by a lady of our profession, and according to
her, originated with a highly cultivated and respected lady of
advanced age. No analysis of this dream was made. Our in-

110

The Dream Censor 111

formant lemarks that to a psychoanalyst it needs no interpreta-
tion. The dreamer herself did not interpret it, but she judged
and condemned it as if she understood its interpretation. For
she said concerning it: "That a woman of fifty should dream
such abominable, stupid stuff — a woman who has no other
thought, day and night, than to care for her child ! ' '

And now follows the dreams of the "services of love." "She
goes into Military Hospital No. 1, and says to the sentry at the
gate, that she must speak to the chief physician . . . (she men-
tions a name which is not familiar to her), as she wants to offer
her service to the hospital. She stresses the word 'service,' so
love services. Since she is an old lady he lets her pass after
some hesitation. But instead of reaching the chief physician,
she finds herself in a large somber room in which there
are many officers and army doctors sitting and standing
around a long table. She turns with her proposal to a staff
doctor who, after a few words, soon understands her. The words
of her speech in the dream are, 'I and numerous other women
and girls of Vienna are ready for the soldiers, troops, and officers,
without distinction . . . ' Here in the dream follows a murmur-
ing. That the idea is, however, correctly understood by those
present she sees from the semi-embarrassed, somewhat malicious
expressions of the officers. The lady then continues, 'I know
that our decision sounds strange, but we are in bitter earnest.
The soldier in the field is not asked either whether or not he
wants to die.' A moment of painful silence follows. The staff
doctor puts his arm around her waist and says, 'Madame, let
us assume that it really came to that . . .' (murmurs). She
withdraws from his arm with the thought, * They are all alike ! '
and answers, ' My heavens, I am an old woman, and perhaps will
never be confronted with that situation; one consideration,
moreover, must be kept in mind : the consideration of age, which
prevents an older woman from . . . with a very young boy . . .
(murmurs) . . . that would be horrible.' The staff doctor,
4 1 understand perfectly/ Several officers, among them one who
had paid court to her in her youth, laugh loudly, and the lady
asks to be conducted to the chief physician, whom she knows, so
that everything may be arranged. At this she realizes with
great dismay that she does not know his name. The staff officer,
nevertheless, very politely and respectfully shows her the way

112 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

to the second story, up a very narrow winding iron stairway
which leads to the upper story directly from the door of the
room. In going up she hears an officer say, ' That is a tremendous
decision irrespective of whether a woman is young or old; all
honor to her ! '

"With the feeling that she is merely doing her duty, she goes
up an endless staircase."

This dream she repeats twice in the course of a few weeks,
with — as the lady notices — quite insignificant and very senseless
changes.

This dream corresponds in its structure to a day dream. It
has few gaps, and many of its individual points might have been
elucidated as to content through inquiry, which, as you know,
was omitted. The conspicuous and interesting point for us,
however, is that the dream shows several gaps, gaps not of
recollection, but of original content. In three places the contend
is apparently obliterated, the speeches in which these gaps occur
are interrupted by murmurs. Since we have performed no
analysis, we have, strictly speaking, also no right to make any
assertion about the meaning of the dream. Yet there are intima-
tions given from which something may be concluded. For ex-
ample, the phrase "services of love," and above all the bits of
speech which immediately precede the murmurs, demand a com-
pletion which can have but one meaning. If we interpolate
these, then the phantasy yields as its content the idea that the
dreamer is ready, as an act of patriotic duty, to offer her person
for the satisfaction of the erotic desires of the army, officers as
well as troops. That certainly is exceedingly shocking, it is an
impudent libidinous phantasy, but — it does not occur in the
dream at all. Just at the point where consistency would demand
this confession, there is a vague murmur in the manifest dream,
something is lost or suppressed.

I hope you will recognize the inevitability of the conclusion
that it is the shocking character of these places in the dream thai
Was the motive for their suppression. Yet where do you find a
parallel for this state of affairs? In these times you need not
seek far. Take up any political paper and you will find that
the text is obliterated here and there, and that in its place
shimmers the white of the paper. You know that that is the
work of the newspaper censor. In these blank spaces something

The Dream Censor 113

was printed which was not to the liking of the censorship author-
ities, and for that reason it was crossed out. You think that it
is a pity, that it probably was the most interesting part, it was
"the best part."

In other places the censorship did not touch the completed
sentence. The author foresaw what parts might be expected to
meet with the objection of the censor, and for that reason he
softened them by way of prevention, modified them slightly, or
contented himself with innuendo and allusion to what really
wanted to flow from his pen. Thus the sheet, it is true, has no
blank spaces, but from certain circumlocutions and obscurities of
expression you will be able to guess that thoughts of the censor-
ship were the restraining motive.

Now let us keep to this parallel. We say that the omitted
dream speeches, which were disguised by a murmuring, were
also sacrifices to a censorship. We actually speak of a dream
censor to which we may ascribe a contributing part in the dream
distortion. Wherever there are gaps in the manifest dream, it
is the fault of the dream censor. Indeed, we should go further,
and recognize each time as a manifestation of the dream censor,
those places at which a dream element is especially faint, indefi-
nitely and doubtfully recalled among other, more clearly de-
lineated portions But it is only rarely that this censorship
manifests itself so undisguisedly, so naively one may say, as in
the example of the dream of the "services of love." Far more
frequently the censorship manifests itself according to the
second type, through the production of weakenings, innuendoes,
allusions instead of direct truthfulness.

For a third type of dream censorship I know of no parallel
in the practice of newspaper censorship, yet it is just this type
that I can demonstrate by the only dream example which we
have so far analyzed. You will remember the dream of the
"three bad theatre tickets for one florin and a half." In the
latent thoughts of this dream, the element "precipitately, too
soon/' stood in the foreground. It means: "It was foolish to
marry so early, it was also foolish to buy theatre tickets so early;
it was ridiculous of the sister-in-law to spend her money so
hastily, merely to buy an ornament." Nothing of this central
element of the dream thought was evident in the manifest dream.
In the latter, going to the theatre and getting the tickets werg

114 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

shoved into the foreground. Through this displacement of the
emphasis, this regrouping of the elements of the content, the
manifest dream becomes so dissimilar from the latent dream
thoughts that no one would suspect the latter behind the former.
This displacement of emphasis is a favorite device of the dream
distortion and gives the dream that strangeness which makes the
dreamer himself unwilling to recognize it as his own production.

Omission, modification, regrouping of the material, these,
then, are the effects of the dream censor and the devices of dream
distortion. The dream censorship itself is the author, or one of
the authors, of the dream distortion whose investigation now
occupies us. Modification and rearrangement we are already
accustomed to summarize as displacement.

After these remarks concerning the effects of the dream
censor, let us now turn to their dynamics. I hope you will not
consider the expression too anthropomorphically, and picture the
dream censor as a severe little manikin who lives in a little
brain chamber and there performs his duties; nor should you
attempt to localize him too much, to think of a brain center
from which his censoring influence emanates, and which would
cease with the injury or extirpation of this center. For the
present, the term "dream censor" is no more than a very con-
venient phrase for a dynamic relationship. This phrase does not
prevent us from asking by what tendencies such influence is
exerted and upon which tendencies it works; nor will we be
surprised to discover that we have already encountered the
dream censor before, perhaps without recognizing him.

For such was actually the case. You will remember that we
had a surprising experience when we began to apply our tech-
nique of free association. We then began to feel that some sort
of a resistance blocked our efforts to proceed from the dream
element to the unconscious element for which the former is the
substitute. This resistance, we said, may be of varying strength,
enormous at one time, quite negligible at another. In the latter
case we need cross only a few intermediate steps in our work
of interpretation. But when the resistance is strong, then we
must go through a long chain of associations, are taken far afield
and must overcome all the difficulties which present themselves
as critical objections to the association technique. What we
met with in the work of interpretation, we must now bring into

The Dream Censor 115

the dream work as the dream censor. The resistance to interpre-
tation is nothing but the objectivation of the dream censor. The
latter proves to us that the force of the censor has not spent
itself in causing the dream distortion, has not since been ex-
tinguished, but that this censorship continues as a permanent
institution with the purpose of preserving the distortion. More-
over, just as in the interpretation the strength of the resistance
varied with each element, so also the distortion produced by the
censor in the same dream is of varying magnitude for each
element. If one compares the manifest with the latent dream
one sees that certain isolated latent elements have been prac-
tically eliminated, others more or less modified, and still others
left unchanged, indeed, have perhaps been taken over into the
dream content with additional strength.

But we wanted to discover what purposes the censorship serves
and against which tendencies it acts. This question, which is
fundamental to the understanding of the dream, indeed perhaps
to human life, is easily answered if we look over a series of
those dreams which have been analyzed. The tendencies which
the censorship exercises are those which are recognized by the
waking judgment of the dreamer, those with which he feels him-
self in harmony. You may rest assured that when you reject
an accurate interpretation of a dream of your own, you do so
with the same motives with which the dream censor works, the
motives with which it produces the dream distortion and makes
the interpretation necessary. Recall the dream of our fifty-
year old lady. "Without having interpreted it, she considers
her dream abominable, would have been still more outraged if
our informant had told her anything about the indubitable
meaning; and it is just on account of this condemnation that
the shocking spots in her dream were replaced by a murmur.

The tendencies, however, against which the dream censor
directs itself, must now be described from the standpoint of
this instance. One can say only that these tendencies are of an
objectionable nature throughout, that they are shocking from
an ethical, aesthetic and social point of view, that they are
things one does not dare even to think, or thinks of only with
abhorrence. These censored wishes which have attained to a
distorted expression in the dream, are above all expressions of
a boundless, reckless egoism. And indeed, the personal ego

116 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

occurs in every dream to play the major part in each of them,
even if it can successfully disguise itself in the manifest content.
This sacro egoismo of the dream is surely not unconnected
with the sleep-inducing cessation of psychic activity which con-
sists, it should be noted, in the withdrawal of interest from the
entire external world.

The ego which has been freed of all ethical restraints feels
itself in accord with all the demands of the sexual striving, with
those demands which have long since been condemned by our
aesthetic rearing, demands of such a character that they resist
all our moral demands for restraint. The pleasure-striving—
the libido, as we term it — chooses its objects without inhibitions,
and indeed, prefers those that are forbidden. It chooses not
only the wife of another, but, above all, those incestuous objects
declared sacred by the agreement of mankind — the mother and
sister in the man's case, the father and brother in the woman's.
Even the dream of our fifty-year old lady is an incestuous one,
its libido unmistakably directed toward her son. Desires which
we believe to be far from human nature show themselves strong
enough to arouse dreams. Hate, too, expends itself without
restraint. Revenge and murderous wishes toward those standing
closest to the dreamer are not unusual, toward those best beloved
in daily life, toward parents, brothers and sisters, toward one's
spouse and one's own children. These censored wishes seem to
arise from a veritable hell ; no censorship seems too harsh to be
applied against their waking interpretation.

But do not reproach the dream itself for this evil content.
You will not, I am sure, forget that the dream is charged with
the harmless, indeed the useful function of guarding sleep from
disturbance. This evil content, then, does not lie in the nature
of the dream. You know also that there are dreams which can
be recognized as the satisfaction of justified wishes and urgent
bodily needs. These, to be sure, undergo no dream distortion.
They need none. They can satisfy their function without offend-
ing the ethical and aesthetic tendencies of the ego. And will
you also keep in mind the fact that the amount of dream dis-
tortion is proportional to two factors. On the one hand, the
worse the censorable wish, the greater the distortion; on the
other hand, however, the stricter the censor himself is at any
particular time the greater the distortion will be also. A young;

The Dream Censor 117

<*trictly reared and prudish girl will, by reason of those factors,
disfigure with an inexorable censorship those dream impulses
which we physicians, for example, and which the dreamer her-
self ten years later, would recognize as permissible, harmless,
libidinous desires.

Besides, we are far from being at the point where we can allow
ourselves to be shocked by the results of our work of interpreta-
tion. I think we are not yet quite adept at it; and above all
there lies upon us the obligation to secure it against certain
attacks. It is not at all difficult to "find a hitch" in it. Our
dream interpretations were made on the hypotheses we accepted
a little while ago, that the dream has some meaning, that from
the hypnotic to the normal sleep one may carry over the idea of
the existence at such times of an unconscious psychic activity,
and that all associations are predetermined. If we had come to
plausible results on the basis of these hypotheses, we would have
been justified in concluding that the hypotheses were correct.
But what is to be done when the results are what I have just
pictured them to be? Then it surely is natural to say, "These
results are impossible, foolish, at least very improbable, hence
there must have been something wrong with the hypotheses.
Either the dream is no psychic phenomenon after all, or there
is no such thing as unconscious mental activity in the normal
condition, or our technique has a gap in it somewhere. Is that
not a simpler and more satisfying conclusion than the abomina-
tions which we pretend to have disclosed on the basis of our
suppositions?"

Both, I answer. It is a simpler as well as a more satisfying
conclusion, but not necessarily more correct for that reason. Let
us take our time, the matter is not yet ripe for judgment. Above
all we can strengthen the criticism against our dream interpreta-
tion still further. That its conclusions are so unpleasant and
unpalatable is perhaps of secondary importance. A stronger
argument is the fact that the dreamers to whom we ascribe such
wish-tendencies from the interpretation of their dreams reject
the interpretations most emphatically, and with good reason.
"What," says the one, "you want to prove to me by this dream
that I begrudged the sums which I spent for my sister's trous-
seau and my brother's education? But indeed that can't be so.
Why I work only for my sister, I have no interest in life but
to fulfill my duties toward her, as being the oldest child, I

118 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

promised our blessed mother I would." Or a woman says of
her dream, "You mean to say that I wish my husband were
dead! Why, that is simply revolting, nonsense. It isn't only
that we have the happiest possible married life, you probably
won't believe me when I tell you so, but his death would de-
prive me of everything else that I own in the world." Or
another will tell us, "You mean that I have sensual desires
toward my sister? That is ridiculous. I am not in the least
fond of her. We don't get along and I haven't exchanged a
word with her in years." We might perhaps ignore this sort of
thing if the dreamers did not confirm or deny the tendencies
ascribed to them; we could say that they are matters which
the dreamers do not know about themselves. But that the
dreamers should feel the exact opposite of the ascribed wish, and
should be able to prove to us the dominance of the opposite
tendency — this fact must finally disconcert us. Is it not time
to lay aside the whole work of the dream interpretation as
something whose results reduce it to absurdity?

By no means; this stronger argument breaks down when we
attack it critically. Assuming that there are unconscious ten-
dencies in the psychic life, nothing is proved by the ability of
the subject to show that their opposites dominate his conscious
life. Perhaps there is room in the psychic life even for an-
tithetical tendencies, for contradictions which oxist side by side,
yes, possibly it is just the dominance of the one impulse which
is the necessary condition for the unconsciousness of its opposite.
The first two objections raised against our work hold merely
that the results of dream interpretation are not simple, and very
unpleasant. In answer to the first of these, one may say that
for all your enthusiasm for the simple solution, you cannot
thereby solve a single dream problem. To do so you must make
up your mind to accept the fact of complicated relationships.
And to the second of these objections one may say that you
are obviously wrong to use a preference or a dislike as the basis
for a scientific judgment. What difference does it make if the
results of the dream interpretation seem unpleasant, even em-
barrassing and disgusting to you? "That doesn't prevent them
from existing," as I used to hear my teacher Charcot say in
similar cases, when I was a young doctor. One must be humble,
one must keep personal preferences and antipathies in the back-

The Dream Censor 119

ground, if one wishes to discover the realities of the world. If
a physicist can prove to you that the organic life of this planet
must, within a short period of time, become completely extinct,
do you also venture to say to him, "That cannot be so. This
prospect is too unpleasant. ' ' On the contrary, you will be silent
until another physicist proves some error in the assumptions or
calculations of the first. If you reject the unpleasant, you are
repeating the mechanism of dream construction instead of under-
standing and mastering it.

Perhaps you will promise to overlook the repulsive character
of the censored dream-wishes, and will take refuge in the argu-
ment that it is improbable, after all, that so wide a field be given
over to the evil in the constitution of man. But does your own
experience justify you in saying that? I will not discuss the
question of how you may estimate yourselves, but have you
found so much good will among your superiors and rivals, so
much chivalry among your enemies, so little envy in their com-
pany, that you feel yourselves in duty bound to enter a protest
against the part played by the evil of egoism in human nature ?
Are you ignorant of how uncontrolled and undependable the
average human being is in all the affairs of sex life ? Or do you
not know that all the immoralities and excesses of which we
dream nightly are crimes commited daily by waking persons?
What else does psychoanalysis do here but confirm the old saying
of Plato, that the good people are those who content themselves
with dreaming what the others, the bad people, really do?

And now turn your attention from the individual case to the
great war devastating Europe. Think of the amount of brutal-
ity, the cruelty and the lies allowed to spread over the civilized
world. Do you really believe that a handful of conscienceless
egoists and corruptionists could have succeeded in setting free
all these evil spirits, if the millions of followers did not share
in the guilt? Do you dare under these circumstances to break
a lance for the absence of evil from the psychic constitution of
mankind ?

You will reproach me with judging the war one-sidedly, you
will say that it has also brought forth all that is most beautiful
and noble in mankind, its heroic courage, its self-sacrifice, its
social feeling. Certainly, but do not at this point allow your-
selves to become guilty of the injustice which has so often been

120 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

perpetrated against psychoanalysis, of reproaching it with deny-
ing one thing because it was asserting another. It is not our
intention to deny the noble strivings of human nature, nor have
we ever done anything to deprecate their value. On the con-
trary, I show you not only the censored evil dream-wishes, but
also the censor which suppresses them and renders them un-
recognizable. We dwell on the evil in mankind with greater
emphasis only because others deny it, a method whereby the
psychic life of mankind does not become better, but merely
incomprehensible. When, however, we give up this one-sided
ethical estimate, we shall surely be able to find a more accurate
formula for the relationship of the evil to the good in human
nature.

And thus the matter stands. We need not give up the con-
clusions to which our labors in dream interpretation lead us
even though we must consider those conclusions strange. Per-
haps we can approach their understanding later by another
path. For the present, let us repeat: dream distortion is a
consequence of the censorship practised by accredited tendencies
of the ego against those wish-impulses that are in any way
shocking, impulses which stir in us nightly during sleep. Why
these wish-impulses come just at night, and whence they come —
these are questions which will bear considerable investigation.

It would be a mistake, however, to omit to mention, with fitting
emphasis, another result of these investigations. The dream
wishes which try to disturb our sleep are not known to us, in
fact we learn of them first through the dream interpretation.
Therefore, they may be described as "at that time" unconscious
in the sense above defined. But we can go beyond this and say
that they are more than merely "at that time" unconscious.
The dreamer to be sure denies their validity, as we have seen
in so many cases, even after he has learned of their existence by
means of the interpretation. The situation is then repeated
which we first encountered in the interpretation of the tongue
slip "hiccough" where the toastmaster was outraged and as-
sured us that neither then nor ever before had he been conscious
of disrespectful impulse toward his chief. This is repeated with
every interpretation of a markedly distorted dream, and for
that reason attains a significance for our conception. We are
now prepared to conclude that there are processes and tendencies

The Dream Censor 121

in the psychic life of which one knows nothing at all, has known
nothing for some time, might, in fact, perhaps never have known
anything. The unconscious thus receives a new meaning for us ;
the idea of "at present" or ''at a specific time" disappears
from its conception, for it can also mean permanently uncon-
scious, not merely latent at the time. Obviously we shall
have to learn more of this at another session.

TENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Symbolism in the Dream

WE have discovered that the distortion of dreams, a
disturbing element in our work of understanding
them, is the result of a censorious activity which
is directed against the unacceptable of the uncon-
scious wish-impulses. But, of course, we have not maintained
that censorship is the only factor which is to blame for the
dream distortion, and we may actually make the discovery in a
further study of the dream that other items play a part in this
result. That is, even ii! the dream censorship were eliminated
we might not be in a position to understand the dreams; the
actual dream still might not be identical with the latent dream
thought.

This other item which makes the dream unintelligible, this
new addition to dream distortion, we discover by considering
a gap in our technique. I have already admitted that for cer-
tain elements of the dream, no associations really occur to the
person being analyzed. This does not happen so often as the
dreamers maintain ; in many cases the association can be forced
by persistence. But still there are certain instances in whic>
no association is forthcoming, or if forced does not furnish what
we expected. When this happens in the course of a psycho-
analytic treatment, then a particular meaning may be attached
thereto, with which we have nothing to do here. It also occurs,
however, in the interpretation of the dreams of a normal person
or in interpreting one's own dreams. Once a person is con-
vinced that in these cases no amount of forcing of associations
will avail, he will finally make the discovery that the unwished-
for contingency occurs regularly in certain dream elements, and
he will begin to recognize a new order of things there, where at
first he believed he had come across a peculiar exception to our
technique.

122

Symbolism in the Dream 123

In this way we are tempted to interpret these silent dream
elements ourselves, to undertake their translation by the means
at hand. The fact that every time we trust to this substitution
we obtain a satisfactory meaning is forced upon us; until we
resolve upon this decision the dream remains meaningless, its
continuity is broken. The accumulation of many similar cases
tends to give the necessary certainty to our first timid attempts.

I am expounding all this in rather a schematic manner, but
this is permissible for purposes of instruction, and I am not
trying to misstate, but only to simplify matters.

In this manner we derive constant translations for a whole
series of dream elements just as constant translations are found
in our popular dream books for all the things we dream. But
do not forget that in our association technique we never discover
constant substitutes for the dream elements.

You will say at once that this road to interpretation appears
far more uncertain and open to objection than the former
methods of free association. But a further fact is to be taken
into consideration. After one has gathered a sufficient number
of such constant substitutes empirically, he will say that of his
own knowledge he should actually have denied that these items
of dream interpretation could really be understood without the
associations of the dreamer. The facts that force us to recognize
their meaning will appear in the second half of our analysis.

We call such a constant relationship between a dream element
and its interpretation symbolic. The dream element is itself a
symbol of the unconscious dream thought. You will remember
that previously, when we were investigating the relationship
between dream elements and their actuality, I drew three dis-
tinctions, viz., that of the part of the whole, that of the allusion,
and that of the imagery. I then announced that there was a
fourth, but did not name it. This fourth is the symbolic rela-
tionship here introduced. Very interesting discussions center
about this, and we will now consider them before we express
our own particular observations on symbolism. Symbolism is
perhaps the most noteworthy chapter of dream study.

In the first place, since symbols are permanent or constant
translations, they realize, in a certain measure, the ideal of
ancient as well as popular dream interpretation, an ideal which
by means of our technique we had left behind. They permit us

124 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

in certain cases to interpret a dream without questioning the
dreamer who, aside from this, has no explanation for the symbol,
If the interpreter is acquainted with the customary dream
symbols and, in addition, with the dreamer himself, the con-
ditions under which the latter lives and the impressions he
received before having the dream, it is often possible to interpret
a dream without further information — to translate it "right off
the bat." Such a trick flatters the interpreter and impresses
the dreamer; it stands out as a pleasurable incident in the
usual arduous course of cross-examining the dreamer. But do
not be misled. It is not our function to perform tricks. Inter-
pretation based on a knowledge of symbols is not a technique
that can replace the associative technique, or even compare with
it. It is a supplement to the associative technique, and furnishes
the latter merely with transplanted, usable results. But as
regards familiarity with the dreamer's psychic situation, you
must consider the fact that you are not limited to interpreting
the dreams of acquaintances; that as a rule you are not ac-
quainted with the daily occurrences which act as the stimuli for
the dreams, and that the associations of the subject furnish you
with a knowledge of that very thing we call the psychic situation.

Furthermore, it is very extraordinary, particularly in view
of circumstances to be mentioned later, that the most vehement
opposition has been voiced against the existence of the symbolic
relationship between the dream and the unconscious. Even per-
sons of judgment and position, who have otherwise made great
progress in psychoanalysis, have discontinued their support at
this point. This is the more remarkable since, in the first place,
symbolism is neither peculiar to the dream nor characteristic of
it, and since in the second place, symbolism in the dream was
not discovered through psychoanalysis, although the latter is
not poor otherwise in making startling discoveries. The dis-
coverer of dream symbolism, if we insist on a discovery in
modern times, was the philosopher K. A. Schemer (1861).
Psychoanalysis affirmed Schemer's discovery and modified it
considerably.

Now you will want to know something of the nature of dream
symbolism, and to hear some examples. I shall gladly impart
to you what I know, but I admit that our knowledge is not so
complete as we could desire it to be.

Symbolism in the Dream 125

The nature of the symbol relationship is a comparison, but
not any desired comparison. One suspects a special prerequisite
for this comparison, but is unable to say what it is. Not every-
thing to which we are able to compare an object or an occurrence
occurs in the dream as its symbol ; on the other hand, the dream
does not symbolize anything we may choose, but only specific
elements of the dream thought. There are limitations on both
sides. It must be admitted that the idea of the symbol cannot
be sharply delimited at all times — it mingles with the substitu-
tion, dramatization, etc., even approaches the allusion. In one
series of symbols the basic comparison is apparent to the senses.
On the other hand, there are other symbols which raise the
question of where the similarity, the "something intermediate"
cf this suspected comparison is to be sought. We may discover
it by more careful consideration, or it may remain hidden to us.
Furthermore, it is extraordinary, if the symbol is a comparison,
that this comparison is not revealed by the association, that the
dreamer is not acquainted with the comparison, that he makes
use of it without knowing of' its existence. Indeed, the dreamer
does not even care to admit the validity of this comparison
when it is pointed out to him. So you see, a symbolic relation-
ship is a comparison of a very special kind, the origin of which is
not yet clearly understood by us. Perhaps later we may find
references to this unknown factor.

The number of things that find symbolic representation in
the dream is not great — the human body as a whole, parents,
children, brothers and sisters, birth, death, nakedness and a
few others. The only typical, that is, regular representation of
the human person as a whole is in the form of a house, as was
recognized by Schemer who, indeed, wished to credit this symbol
with an overwhelming significance which it does not deserve.
It occurs in dreams that a person, now lustful, now frightened,
climbs down the fronts of houses. Those with entirely smooth
walls are men; but those which are provided with projections
and balconies to which one can hold on, are women. Parents
appear in the dream as king and queen, or other persons highly
respected. The dream in this instance is very pious. It treats
children, and brothers and sisters, less tenderly; they are sym-
bolized as little animals or vermin. Birth is almost regularly
represented by some reference to water; either one plunges into

126 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the water or climbs out of it, or rescues someone from the water,
or is himself rescued from it, i.e., there is a mother-relation
to the person. Death is replaced in the dream by taking a
journey, riding in a train; being dead, by various darksome,
timid suggestions; nakedness, by clothes and uniforms. You see
here how the lines between symbolic and suggestive representa
tion merge one into another.

In contrast to the paucity of this enumeration, it is a striking
fact that the objects and subject matter of another sphere are
represented by an extraordinarily rich symbolism. This is the
sphere of the sexual life, the genitals, the sex processes and
sexual intercourse. The great majority of symbols in the dream
are sex symbols. A remarkable disproportion results from this
fact. The designated subject matters are few, their symbols
extraordinarily profuse, so that each of these objects can be
expressed by any number of symbols of almost equal value. In
the interpretation something is disclosed that arouses universal
objection. The symbol interpretations, in contrast to the many-
sidedness of the dream representations, are very monotonous —
this displeases all who deal with them; but what is one to do?

Since this is the first time in these lectures that we speak of
the sexual life, I must tell you the manner in which I intend to
handle this theme. Psychoanalysis sees no reason for hiding
matters or treating them by innuendo, finds no necessity of being
ashamed of dealing with this important subject, believes it is
proper and decent to call everything by its correct name, and
hopes most effectively in this manner to ward off disturbing or
salacious thoughts. The fact that I am talking before a mixed
audience can make no difference on this point. Just as there is
no special knowledge either for the Delphic oracle or for flappers,
so the ladies present among you have, by their appearance in
this lecture hall, made it clear that they wish to be considered
on the same basis as the men.

The dream has a number of representations for the male
genital that may be called symbolic, and in which the similarity
of the comparison is, for the most part, very enlightening. In
the first place, the holy figure 3 is a symbolical substitute for
the entire male genital. The more conspicuous and more inter-
esting part of the genital to both sexes, the male organ, has
symbolical substitute in objects of like form, those which are

Symbolism in the Dream 127

long and upright, such as sticks, umbrellas, poles, trees, etc.
It is also symbolized by objects that have the characteristic, in
common with it, of penetration into the body and consequent
injury, hence pointed weapons of every type, knives, daggers,
lances, swords, and in the same manner firearms, guns, pistols
and the revolver, which is so suitable because of its shape. In
the troubled dream of the young girl, pursuit by a man with
a knife or a firearm plays a big role. This, probably the most
frequent dream symbolism, is easily translatable. Easily com-
prehensible, too, is the substitution for the male member of
objects out of which water flows : faucets, water cans, fountains,
as well as its representation by other objects that have the power
of elongation, such as hanging lamps, collapsible pencils, etc.
That pencils, quills, nail files, hammers and other instruments
are undoubtedly male symbols is a fact connected with a con-
ception of the organ, which likewise is not far to seek.

The extraordinary characteristic of the member of being able
to raise itself against the force of gravity, one of the phenomena
of erection, leads to symbolic representations by balloons, aero-
planes, and more recently, Zeppelins. The dream has another
far more expressive way of symbolizing erection. It makes the
sex organ the essential part of the whole person and pictures
the person himself as flying. Do not feel disturbed because the
dreams of flying, often so beautiful, and which we all have had,
must be interpreted as dreams of general sexual excitement, as
erection dreams. P. Federn, among the psychoanalytical stu-
dents, has confirmed this interpretation beyond any doubt, and
even Hourly Void, much praised for his sobriety, who carried
>n his dream experiments with artificial positions of the arms
and legs, and who was really opposed to psychoanalysis — per-
haps knew nothing about psychoanalysis — has come to the same
conclusion as a result of his research. It is no objection to this
conclusion that women may have the same dreams of flying.
Remember that our dreams act as wish-fulfillments, and that
the wish to be a man is often present in women, consciously or
unconsciously. And the fact that it is possible for a woman
to realize this wish by the same sensation as a man does, will
not mislead anyone acquainted with anatomy. There is a small
organ in the genitals of a woman similar to that of the male,
and this small organ, the clitoris, even in childhood, and in the

128 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

years before sexual intercourse, plays the same role as does the
large organ of the male.

To the less comprehensible male sex-symbols belong certain
reptiles and fish, notably the famous symbol of the snake. Why
hats and cloaks should have been turned to the same use is
certainly difficult to discover, but their symbolic meaning leaves
no room for doubt. And finally the question may be raised
whether possibly the substitution of some other member as a
representation for the male organ may not be regarded as sym-
bolic. I believe that one is forced to this conclusion by the
context and by the female counterparts.

The female genital is symbolically represented by all those
objects which share its peculiarity of enclosing a space capable
of being filled by something — viz., by pits, caves, and hollows,
by pitchers and bottles, by boxes and trunks, jars, cases, pockets,
etc. The ship, too, belongs in this category. Many symbols
represent the womb of the mother rather than the female genital,
as wardrobes, stoves, and primarily a room. The room-sym-
bolism is related to the house-symbol, doors and entrances again
become symbolic of the genital opening. But materials, too,
are symbols of the woman — wood, paper, and objects that are
made of these materials, such as tables and books. Of animals,
at least the snail and mussel are unmistakably recognizable as
symbols for the female ; of parts of the body the mouth takes the
place of the genital opening, while churches and chapels are
structural symbolisms. As you see, all of these symbols are not
equally comprehensible.

The breasts must be included in the genitals, and like the
larger hemispheres of the female body are represented by
apples, peaches and fruits in general. The pubic hair growth
of both sexes appears in the dream as woods and bushes. The
complicated topography of the female genitals accounts for the
fact that they are often represented as scenes with cliffs, woods
and water, while the imposing mechanism of the male sex ap-
paratus leads to the use of all manner of very complicated
machinery, difficult to describe.

A noteworthy symbol of the female genital is also the jewel'
casket; jewels and treasure are also representatives of the be-
loved person in the dream; sweets frequently occur as repre-
sentatives of sexual delights. The satisfaction in one's own

Symbolism in the Dream 129

genital is suggested by all types of play, in which may be
included piano-playing. Exquisite symbolic representations of
onanism are sliding and coasting as well as tearing off a, branch.
A particularly remarkable dream symbol is that of having one's
teeth fall out, or having them pulled. Certainly its most im-
mediate interpretation is castration as a punishment for onanism.
Special representations for the relations of the sexes are less
numerous in the dream than we might have expected from the
foregoing. Ehythmic activities, such as dancing, riding and
climbing may be mentioned, also harrowing experiences, such as
being run over. One may include certain manual activities, and,
of course, being threatened with weapons.

You must not imagine that either the use or the translation
of these symbols is entirely simple. All manner of unexpected
things are continually happening. For example, it seems hardly
believable that in these symbolic representations the sex differ-
ences are not always sharply distinguished. Many symbols rep-
resent a genital in general, regardless of whether male or
female, e.g., the little child, the small son or daughter. It some-
times occurs that a predominantly male symbol is used for a
female genital, or vice versa. This is not understood until one
has acquired an insight into the development of the sexual repre-
sentations of mankind. In many instances this double meaning
of symbols may be only apparent; the most striking of the
symbols, such as weapons, pockets and boxes are excluded from
this bisexual usage.

I should now like to give a summary, from the point of view
of the symbols rather than of the thing represented, of the
field out of which the sex symbols are for the most part taken,
and then to make a few remarks about the symbols which have
points in common that are not understood. An obscure symbol
of this type is the hat, perhaps headdress on the whole, and is
usually employed as a male representation, though at times as
a female. In the same way the cloak represents a man, perhaps
not always the genital aspect. You are at liberty to ask, why T
The cravat, which is suspended and is not worn by women, is
an unmistakable male symbol. White laundry, all linen, in fact,
is female. Dresses, uniforms are, as we have already seen, sub-
stitutes for nakedness, for body-formation ; the shoe or slipper
is a female genital. Tables and wood have already been men-

130 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

tioned as puzzling but undoubtedly female symbols. Ladders,
ascents, steps in relation to their mounting, are certainly sym-
bols of sexual intercourse. On closer consideration we see that
they have the rhythm of walking as a common characteristic;
perhaps, too, the heightening of excitement and the shortening
of the breath, the higher one mounts.

We have already spoken of natural scenery as a representation
of the female genitals. Mountains and cliffs are symbols of the
male organ ; the garden a frequent symbol of the female genitals.
Fruit does not stand for the child, but for the breasts. Wild
animals signify sensually aroused persons, or further, base im-
pulses, passions. Blossoms and flowers represent the female
genitals, or more particularly, virginity. Do not forget that the
blossoms are really the genitals of the plants.

We already know the room as a symbol. The representation
may be extended in that the windows, entrances and exits of
the room take on the meaning of the body openings. Whether
the room is open or closed is a part of this symbolism, and the
key that opens it is an unmistakable male symbol.

This is the material of dream symbolism. It is not complete
and might be deepened as well as extended. But I am of the
opinion it will seem more than enough to you, perhaps will make
you reluctant. You will ask, "Do I really live in the midst
of sex symbols? Are all the objects that surround me, all the
clothes I put on, all the things that I touch, always sex symbols,
and nothing else?" There really are sufficient grounds for
such questions, and the first is, "Where, in fact, are we to find
the meaning of these dream symbols if the dreamer himself can
give no information concerning them, or at best can give only
incomplete information ? ' '

My answer is: "From many widely different sources, from
fairy tales and myths, jokes and farces, from folklore, that is,
the knowledge of the customs, usages, sayings and songs of
peoples, from the poetic and vulgar language. Everywhere we
find the same symbolism and in many of these instances we
understand them without further information. If we follow up
each of these sources separately we shall find so many parallels
to the dream symbolism that we must believe in the correctness
of our interpretations. ' '

The human body, we have said, is, according to Schemer,

Symbolism in the Dream 131

frequently symbolized in the dream by the house. Continuing
this representation, the windows, doors and entrances are the
entrances into the body cavities, the facades are smooth or pro-
vided with balconies and projections to which to hold. The
same symbolism is to be found in our daily speech when we
greet a good friend as "old house" or when we say of someone,
"We'll hit him in the belfry/' or maintain of another that he's
not quite right in the upper story. In anatomy the body
openings are sometimes called the body-portals.

The fact that we meet our parents in the dream as imperial
or royal persons is at first surprising. But it has its parallel
in the fairy tale. Doesn't it begin to dawn upon us that the
many fairy tales which begin "Once upon a time there was a
king and a queen" intend nothing else than, "Once there was
a father and a mother f" In our families we refer to our
children as princes, the eldest as the crown-prince. The king
usually calls himself the father of the country. We playfully
designate little children as worms, and say, sympathetically,
"poor little worm."

Let us return to the symbolism of the house. When we use the
projections of the house to hold ourselves on to in the dream,
are we not reminded of the familiar colloquialism about persons
with well-developed breasts : "She has something to hold on to"1
The folk express this in still another way when it says, * ' there 's
lots of wood in front of her house"; as though it wished to come
to the aid of our interpretation that wood is a feminine, maternal
symbol.

In addition to wood there are others. We might not under-
stand how this material has come to be a substitute for the
maternal, the feminine. Here our comparison of languages may
be helpful. The German word Holz (wood) is said to be
from the same stem as the Greek word, v\y, which means stuff,
raw material. This is an example of the case, not entirely un-
usual, where a general word for material finally is exclusively
used for some special material. There is an island in the ocean,
known by the naire of Madeira. The Portuguese gave it this
name at the time of its discovery because it was at that time
entirely covered with forests, for in the language of the Portu-
guese, Madeira means wood. You will recognize, however, that
Madeira is nothing else than the slightly changed Latin word

132 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

nateria which again has the general meaning of material.
Material is derived from mater, mother. The material out of
which something is made, is at the same time its mother-part.
In the symbolic use of wood for woman, mother, this ancient
conception still lives.

Birth is regularly expressed in dreams by some connection
with water; one plunges into the water, or comes out of the
water, which means one gives birth to, or is born. Now let us
not forget that this symbol may refer in two ways to the truths
of evolutionary history. Not alone have all land-mammals,
including the ancestors of man, developed out of water animals —
this is the ultimate fact — but every single mammal, every human
being, lived the first part of his existence in the water — namely,
lived in the body of his mother as an embryo in the amnotic
fluid and came out of the water at the time of his birth. I do
not wish to maintain that the dreamer knows this, on the con-
trary I hold that he does not have to know The dreamer very
likely knows some things because of the fact that he was told
about them in his childhood, and for that very reason I maintain
that this knowledge has played no part in the construction of
his symbols. He was told in childhood that the stork brought
him — but where did it get him? Out of a lake, out of the well
— again, out of the water. One of my patients to whom such
information had been given, a little count, disappeared for a
whole afternoon. Finally he was discovered lying at the edge
of the palace lake, his little face bent above the water and
earnestly peering into it to see if he could not see the little
children at the bottom.

In the myths of the birth of the hero, which 0. Bank sub-
mitted to comparative examination, — the oldest is that of King
Sargon of Agade, about 2800 B.C.— exposure in the water and
rescue from water play a predominating role. Rank has recog-
nized that these are representations of birth, analogous to those
customary in dreams. When a person in his dream rescues an-
other from the water, the latter becomes his mother, or just
plainly mother; in the myth a person who rescues a child out
of the water professes herself as the real mother of the child.
In a well-known joke the intelligent Jewish boy is asked who
was the mother of Moses. He answered without hesitation, the
Princess. But no, he is told, she only took him out of the water.

Symbolism in the Dream 133

"That's what she says," is his reply, and thereby he shows
that he has found the correct interpretation of the myth.

Leaving on a trip represents death in the dream. Likewise
it is the custom in the nursery when a child asks where someone
who has died, and whom he misses, may be, to say to him that the
absent one has taken a trip. Again I should like to deny the
truth of the belief that the dream symbol originates in this
evasion used for the benefit of children. The poet makes use
of the same symbol when he speaks of the Hereafter as "that
undiscovered bourne from which no traveler returns. ' ' Even in
everyday speech it is customary to refer to the last journey.
Every person acquainted with ancient rite knows how seriously,
for example, the Egyptians considered the portrayal of a
journey to the land of the dead. There still exist many copies
of the "death book" which was given to the mummy for this
journey as a sort of Baedeker. Since the burial places have been
separated from the living quarters, the last journey of the dead
person has become a reality.

In the same manner the genital symbolism is just as little
peculiar to the dream alone. Every one of you has perhaps
at some time or other been so unkind as to call some woman an
"old casket" without perhaps being aware that he was using a
genital symbol. In the New Testament one may read "Woman
is a weak vessel." The Holy Scriptures of the Jews, so nearly
poetic in their style, are filled with sex-symbolic expressions
which have not always been correctly understood, and the true
construction of which, in the Song of Songs, for example, has led
to many misunderstandings. In the later Hebraic literature the
representation of woman as a house, the door taking the place of
the sex opening, is very widespread. The man complains, for
instance, when he discovers a lack of virginity, that he has found
the door open. The symbol of the table for woman is also known
to this literature. The woman says of her husband, "I set the
table for him, but he upset it." Lame children are supposed
to result from the fact that the man has overturned the table. I
take these examples from a work by L. Levy of Briinn, The
Sexual Symbolism of the Bible and the Talmud.

That ships, too, represent women in dreams is a belief derived
from the etymologists, who maintain "ship" was originally the
name of an earthen vessel and is the same word as Schaff

134 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

(to create). The Greek myth of Periander of Corinth and his
wife Melissa is proof that the stove or oven is a woman, and a
womb. When, according to Herodotus, the tyrant entreated
the shade of his beloved wife, whom, however, he had murdered
in a fit of jealousy, for some sign of its identity, the deceased
identified herself by the reminder that he, Periander, had thrust
his bread into a cold oven, as a disguise for an occurrence that
could have been known to no other person. In the Anthropo-
phyteia published by F. S. Krauss, an indispensable source book
for everything that has to do with the sex life of nations, we
read that in a certain German region it is commonly said of a
woman who has just been delivered of a child, "Her oven has
caved in." The making of a fire and everything connected
therewith is filled through and through with sex symbolism.
The flame is always the male genital, the fireplace, the hearth,
is the womb of the woman.

If you have often wondered why it is that landscapes are so
often used to represent the female genitals in the dream, then
let the mythologist teach you the role Mother Earth has played
in the symbolisms and cults of ancient times. You may be
tempted to say that a room represents a woman in the dream
because of the German colloquialism which uses the term Frauen-
zimmer instead of Frau, in other words, it substitutes for the
human person the idea of that room that is set aside for her
exclusive use. In like manner we speak of the Sublim Porte,
and mean the Sultan and his government; furthermore, the
name of the ancient Egyptian ruler, Pharaoh, means nothing
other than "great court room." (In the ancient Orient the court
yards between the double gates of the town were the gathering
places of the people, in the same manner as the market place
was in the classical world.) What I mean is, this derivation is
far too superficial. It seems more probable to me that the room,
as the space surrounding man, came to be the symbol of woman.
We have seen that the house is used in such a representation;
from mythology and poetry we may take the city, fortress,
palace, citadel, as further symbols of woman. The question may
easily be decided by the dreams of those persons who do not
speak German and do not understand it. In the last few years
my patients have been predominantly foreign-language speak-
ing, and I think I can recall that in their dreams as well the

Symbolism in the Dream 135

room represents woman, even where they had no analogous
usages in their languages. There are still other signs which
show that the symbolization is not limited by the bounds of
language, a fact that even the old dream investigator, Schubert
(1862) maintained. Since none of my dreamers were totally
ignorant of German I must leave this differentiation to those
psychoanalysts who can gather examples in other lands where
the people speak but one language.

Among the symbol-representations of the male genital there
is scarcely one that does not recur in jokes or in vulgar or
poetical usage, especially among the old classical poets. Not
alone do those symbols commonly met with in dreams appear
here, but also new ones, e.g., the working materials of various
performances, foremost of which is the incantation. Further-
more, we approach in the symbolic representation of the male a
very extended and much discussed province, which we shall
avoid for economic reasons. I should like to make a few remarks,
however, about one of the unclassified symbols — the figure 3.
Whether or not this figure derives its holiness from its symbolic
meaning may remain undecided. But it appears certain that
many objects which occur in nature as three-part things derive
their use as coats-of-arms and emblems from such symbolic
meaning, e.g., the clover, likewise the three-part French lily,
(fleur-de-lys), and the extraordinary coats-of-arms of two such
widely separated islands as Sicily and the Isle of Man, where
the Triskeles (three partly bended knees, emerging from a
central point) are merely said to be the portrayal in a different
form of the male genitals. Copies of the male member were
used in antiquity as the most powerful charms (Apotropaea)
against evil influences, and this is connected with the fact that
the lucky amulets of our own time may one and all be recognized
as genital or sex-symbols. Let us study such a collection, worn
in the form of little silver pendants : the four-leaf clover, a pig,
a mushroom, a horse-shoe, a ladder, a chimney-sweep. The four-
leaf clover, it seems, has usurped the place of the three-leaf
clover, which is really more suitable as a symbol ; the pig is an an-
cient symbol of fertility; the mushroom is an unquestionable
penis symbol — there are mushrooms that derive their systematic
names from their unmistakable similarity to the male member
(Phallus impudicus) ; the horseshoe recalls the contour of the

136 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

female genital opening; and the chimney sweep who carries a
ladder belongs in this company because he carries on that trade
with which the sex-intercourse is vulgarly compared (cf. the
Anthropophyteia) . "We have already become acquainted with
his ladder as a sex symbol in the dream; the German usage is
helpful here, it shows us how the verb "to mount"1 is made use
of in an exquisite sexual sense. We use the expressions "to run
after women," which literally translated would be "to climb
after women," and "an old climber."2 In French, where "step"
is "la marche" we find that the analogous expression for a man
about town is "un vieux marcheur." It is apparently not
unknown in this connection that the sexual intercourse of many
of the larger animals requires a mounting, a climbing upon the
female.

The tearing off of a branch as the symbolic representation of
onanism is not alone in keeping with the vulgar representation
of the fact of onanism, but has far-reaching mythological paral-
lels. Especially noteworthy, however, is the representation of
onanism, or rather the punishment therefor, castration, by the
falling out or pulling out of teeth, because there is a parallel
in folk-lore which is probably known to the fewest dreamers.
It does not seem at all questionable to me that the practice of
circumcision common among so many peoples is an equivalent
and a substitute for castration. And now we are informed that
in Australia certain primitive tribes practice circumcision as a
rite of puberty (the ceremony in honor of the boy's coming of
age), while others, living quite near, have substituted for this act
the striking out of a tooth.

I end my exposition with these examples. They are only
examples. We know more about these matters, and you may
well imagine how much richer and how much more interesting
such a collection would appear if made, not by amateurs like
ourselves, but by real experts in mythology, anthropology,
philology and folk-lore. We are compelled to draw a few con-
clusions which cannot be exhaustive, but which give us much
food for thought.

In the first place, we are faced by the fact that the dreamer
has at his disposal a symbolic means of expression of which he

1 " steigen. ' '

•" den Fraueu nachsteigen, " and " ein alter Steiger."

Symbolism in the Dream 137

is unconscious while awake, and does not recognize when he sees.
That is as remarkable as if you should make the discovery that
your chambermaid understands Sanskrit, although you know
she was born in a Bohemian village and never learned the lan-
guage. It is not easy to harmonize this fact with our psycho-
logical views. We can only say that the dreamer's knowledge
of symbolism is unconscious, that it is a part of his unconscious
mental life. We make no progress with this assumption. Until
now it was only necessary to admit of unconscious impulses,
those about which one knew nothing, either for a period of
time or at all times. But now we deal with something more;
indeed, with unknown knowledge, with thought relationships,
comparisons between unlike objects which lead to this, that one
constant may be substituted for another. These comparisons
are not made anew each time, but they lie ready, they are com-
plete for all time. That is to be concluded from the fact of
their agreement in different persons, agreement despite differ-
ences in language.

But whence comes the knowledge of these symbol-relation-
ships? The usages of language cover only a small part of
them. The dreamer is for the most part unacquainted with
the numerous parallels from other sources; we ourselves must
first laboriously gather them together.

Secondly, these symbolic representations are peculiar neither
to the dreamer nor to the dream work by means of which they
become expressed. We have learned that mythology and fairy-
tales make use of the same symbolism, as well as do the people
in their sayings and songs, the ordinary language of every day,
and poetic phantasy. The field of symbolism is an extra-
ordinarily large one, and dream symbolism is but a small part
thereof. It is not even expedient to approach the whole problem
from the dream side. Many of the symbols that are used in other
places do not occur in the dream at all, or at best only very
seldom. Many of the dream symbols are to be found in other
fields only very rarely, as you have seen. One gets the impres-
sion that he is here confronted with an ancient but no longer
existent method of expression, of which various phases, however,
continue in different fields, one here, one there, a third, perhaps
in a slightly altered form, in several fields. I am reminded
of the phantasy of an interesting mental defective, who had

138 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

imagined a fundamental language, of which all these sym-
bolic representations were the remains.

Thirdly, you must have noticed that symbolism in these other
fields is by no means sex symbolism solely, while in the dream
the symbols are used almost entirely to express sexual objects
and processes. Nor is this easily explained. Is it possible that
symbols originally sexual in their meaning later came to have
other uses, and that this was the reason perhaps for the weaken-
ing of the symbolic representation to one of another nature?
These questions are admittedly unanswerable if one has dealt
only with dream-symbolism. One can only adhere to the sup-
position that there is an especially intimate connection between
true symbols and things sexual.

An important indication of this has been given us recently.
A philologist, H. Sperber (Upsala) who works independently
of psychoanalysis, advanced the theory that sexual needs have
played the largest part in the origin and development of lan-
guages. The first sounds served as means of communication,
and called the sexual partner; the further development of the
roots of speech accompanied the performance of the primitive
man's work. This work was communal and progressed to the
accompaniment of rhythmically repeated word sounds. In that
way a sexual interest was transferred to the work. The primitive
man made work acceptable at the same time that he used it as
an equivalent and substitute for sex-activity. The word thus
called forth by the common labor had two meanings, designating
the sex-act as well as the equivalent labor-activity. In time
the word became disassociated from its sexual significance and
became fixed on this work. Generations later the same thing
happened to a new word that once had sexual significance and
came to be used for a new type of work. In this manner a
number of word-roots were formed, all of sexual origin, and all
of which had lost their sexual significance. If the description
sketched here approximates the truth, it opens up the possibility
for an understanding of the dream symbolism. "We can under-
stand how it is that in the dream, which preserves something
of these most ancient conditions, there are so extraordinarily
many symbols for the sexual, and why, in general, weapons
and implements always stand for the male, materials and things
tnanufactured, for the female. Symbolic relationships would be

Symbolism in the Dream 139

the remnants of the old word-identity; things which once were
called by the same names as the genitals can now appear in
the dream as symbols for them.

From our parallels to dream symbolization you may also
learn to appreciate what is the character of psychoanalysis which
makes it a subject of general interest, which is true of neither
psychology nor psychiatry. Psychoanalytic work connects with
so many other scientific subjects, the investigation of which
promises the most pertinent discoveries, with mythology, with
folk-lore, with racial psychology and with religion. You will
understand how a journal can have grown on psychoanalytic
goil, the sole purpose of which is the furtherance of these re-
lationships. This is the Imago founded in 1912 and edited
by Hanns Sachs and Otto Rank. In all of these relations, psy-
choanalysis is first and foremost the giving, less often the re-
ceiving, part. Indeed it derives benefit from the fact that its
unusual teachings are substantiated by their recurrence in other
fields, but on the whole it is psychoanalysis that provides the
technical procedure and the point of view, the use of which will
prove fruitful in those other fields. The psychic life of the
human individual provides us, upon psychoanalytic investiga-
tion, with explanations with which we are able to solve many
riddles in the life of humanity, or at least show these riddles
in their proper light.

Furthermore, I have not even told you under what conditions
we are able to get the deepest insight into that suppositious
"fundamental language," or from which field we gain the most
information. So long as you do not know this you cannot ap-
preciate the entire significance of the subject. This field is the
neurotic, its materials, the symptoms and other expressions of
the nervous patient, for the explanation and treatment of which
psychoanalysis was devised.

My fourth point of view returns to our premise and connects
up with our prescribed course. We said, even if there were
no such thing as dream censorship, the dream would still be
hard to understand, for we would then be confronted with the
task of translating the symbol-language of the dream into the
thought of our waking hours. Symbolism is a second and
independent item of dream distortion, in addition to dream
censorship. It is not a far cry to suppose that it is convenient

140 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

for the dream censorship to make use of symbolism since both
lead to the same end, to making the dream strange and incom-
prehensible.

Whether or not in the further study of the dream we shall
hit upon a new item that influences dream distortion, remains
to be seen. I should not like to leave the subject of dream
symbolism without once more touching upon the curious fact
that it arouses such strong opposition in the case of educated
persons, in spite of the fact that symbolism in myth, religion,
art and speech is undoubtedly so prevalent. Is not this again
because of its relationship to sexuality f

ELEVENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM
The Dream-Work

IF you have mastered dream censorship and symbolic repre-
sentation, you are, to be sure, not yet adept in dream distor-
tion, but you are nevertheless in a position to understand
most dreams. For this you employ two mutually supple-
mentary methods, call up the associations of the dreamer until
you have penetrated from the substitute to the actual, and from
your own knowledge supply the meaning for the symbol. Later
we shall discuss certain uncertainties which show themselves in
this process.

We are now in a position to resume work which we attempted,
with very insufficient means at an earlier stage, when we studied
the relation between the manifest dream elements and their
latent actualities, and in so doing established four such main
relationships: that of a part of the whole, that of approach
or allusion, the symbolic relationship and plastic word repre-
sentation. We shall now attempt the same on a larger scale,
by comparing the manifest dream content as a whole, with the
latent dream which we found by interpretation.

I hope you will never again confuse these two. If you have
achieved this, you have probably accomplished more in the
understanding of the dream than the majority of the readers
of my Interpretation of Dreams. Let me remind you once
more that this process, which changes the latent into the manifest
dream, is called dream-work. Work which proceeds in the op-
posite direction, from the manifest dream to the latent, is our
work of interpretation. The work of interpretation attempts
to undo the dream-work. Infantile dreams that are recognized
as evident wish fulfillments nevertheless have undergone some
dream-work, namely, the transformation of the wish into reality,
and generally, too, of thoughts into visual pictures. Here we

141

142 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

need no interpretation, but only a retracing of these transf orma.
tions. Whatever dream-work has been added to other dreams,
we call dream distortion, and this can be annulled by our work
of interpretation.

The comparison of many dream interpretations has rendered
it possible for me to give you a coherent representation of what
the dream-work does with the material of the latent dream. I
beg of you, however, not to expect to understand too much of
this. It is a piece of description that should be listened to with
calm attention.

The first process of the dream-work is condensation. By this
we understand that the manifest dream has a smaller content
than the latent one, that is, it is a sort of abbreviated trans-
lation of the latter. Condensation may occasionally be absent,
but as a rule it is present, often to a very high degree. The
opposite is never true, that is, it never occurs that the manifest
dream is more extensive in scope and content than the latent.
Condensation occurs in the following ways: 1. Certain latent
elements are entirely omitted ; 2. only a fragment of the many
complexes of the latent dream is carried over into the manifest
dream; 3. latent elements that have something in common
are collected for the manifest dream and are fused into a whole.

If you wish, you may reserve the term "condensation" for
this last process alone. Its effects are particularly easy to
demonstrate. From your own dreams you will doubtless recall
the fusion of several persons into one. Such a compound person
probably looks like A., is dressed like B., does something that
one remembers of C., but in spite of this one is conscious that
he is really D. By means of this compound formation something
common to all four people is especially emphasized. One can
make a compound formation of events and of places in the same
way as of people, provided always that the single events and
localities have something in common which the latent dream
emphasizes. It is a sort of new and fleeting concept of forma-
tion, with the common element as its kernel. This jumble of
details that has been fused together regularly results in a vague
indistinct picture, as though you had taken several pictures
on the same film.

The shaping of such compound formations must be of great
importance to the dream-work, for we can prove, (by the choice

The Dream- Work 143

of a verbal expression for a thought, for instance) that the
common elements mentioned above are purposely manufactured
where they originally do not exist. "We have already become
acquainted with such condensation and compound formations;
they played an important part in the origin of certain cases of
slips of the tongue. You recall the young man who wished to
inscort a woman. Furthermore, there are jokes whose technique
may be traced to such a condensation. But entirely aside from
this, one may maintain that this appearance of something quite
unknown in the dream finds its counterpart in many of the
creations of our imagination which fuse together component
parts that do not belong together in experience, as for example
the centaurs, and the fabulous animals of old mythology or of
Boecklin's pictures. For creative imagination can invent
nothing new whatsoever, it can only put together certain details
normally alien to one another. The peculiar thing, however,
about the procedure of the dream-work is the following: The
material at the disposal of the dream-work consists of thoughts,
thoughts which may be offensive and unacceptable, but which
are nevertheless correctly formed and expressed. These thoughts
are transformed into something else by the dream-work, and it is
remarkable and incomprehensible that this translation, this
rendering, as it were, into another script or language, employs
the methods of condensation and combination. For a translation
usually strives to respect the discriminations expressed in the
text, and to differentiate similar things. The dream-work, on
the contrary, tries to fuse two diff erent thoughts by looking, just
as the joke does, for an ambiguous word which shall act as a
connecting link between the two thoughts. One need not attempt
to understand this feature of the case at once, but it may become
significant for the conception of the dream-work.

Although condensation renders the dream opaque, one does
not get the impression that it is an effect of dream censorship.
One prefers to trace it back to mechanical or economic con-
ditions ; but censorship undoubtedly has a share in the process.

The results of condensation may be quite extraordinary.
With its help, it becomes possible at times to collect quite un-
related latent thought processes into one manifest dream, so
that one can arrive at an apparently adequate interpretation,
and at the same time conceive a possible further interpretation.

144 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

The consequence of condensation for the relation between
latent and manifest dreams is the fact that no simple relations
can exist between the elements of the one and the other. A
manifest element corresponds simultaneously to several latent
ones, and vice versa, a latent element may partake of several
manifest ones, an interlacing, as it were. In the interpretation
of the dream it also becomes evident that the associations to a
single element do not necessarily follow one another in orderly
sequence. Often we must wait until the entire dream is inter-
preted.

Dream-work therefore accomplishes a very unusual sort of
transcription of dream thoughts, not a translation word for
word, or sign for sign, not a selection according to a set rule,
as if all the consonants of a word were given and the vowels
omitted ; nor is it what we might call substitution, namely, the
choice of one element to take the place of several others. It
is something very different and much more complicated.

The second process of the dream-work is displacement. For-
tunately we are already prepared for this, since we know that it
is entirely the work of dream censorship. The two evidences of
this are firstly, that a latent element is not replaced by one of
its constituent parts but by something further removed from it,
that is, by a sort of allusion ; secondly, that the psychic accent
is transferred from an important element to another that is
unimportant, so that the dream centers elsewhere and seems
strange.

Substitution by allusion is known to our conscious thinking
also, but with a difference. In conscious thinking the allusion
must be easily intelligible, and the substitute must bear a rela-
tion to the actual content. Jokes, too, often make use of allusion ;
they let the condition of content associations slide and replace
it by unusual external associations, such as resemblances in
sound, ambiguity of words, etc. They retain, however, the
condition of intelligibility; the joke would lose all its effect if
the allusion could not be traced back to the actual without any
effort whatsoever. The allusion of displacement has freed itself
of both these limitations. Its connection with the element which
it replaces is most external and remote, is unintelligible for this
reason, and if it is retraced, its interpretation gives the impres-
sion of an unsuccessful joke or of a forced, far-fetched explana-

The Dream- Work 145

tion. For the dream censor has only then accomplished its pur-
pose, when it has made the path of return from the allusion
to the original undiscoverable.

The displacement of emphasis is unheard of as a means of
expressing thoughts. In conscious thinking we occasionally
admit it to gain a comic effect. I can probably give you an
idea of the confusion which this produces by reminding you
of the story of the blacksmith who had committed a capital
crime. The court decided that the penalty for the crime must
be paid, but since he was the only blacksmith in the village
and therefore indispensable, while there were three tailors, one
of the latter was hung in his stead.

The third process of the dream-work is the most interesting
from a psychological point of view. It consists of the translation
of thoughts into visual images. Let us bear in mind that by no
means all dream thoughts undergo this translation; many of
them retain their form and appear in the manifest dream also
as thought or consciousness; moreover, visual images are not
the only form into which thoughts are translated. They are,
however, the foundation of the dream fabric; this part of the
dream work is, as we already know, the second most constant,
and for single dream elements we have already learned to know
"plastic word representation."

It is evident that this process is not simple. In order to get
an idea of its difficulties you must pretend that you have under-
taken the task of replacing a political editorial in a newspaper
by a series of illustrations, that you have suffered an atavistic
return from the use of the alphabet to ideographic writing.
Whatever persons or concrete events occur in this article you
will be able to replace easily by pictures, perhaps to your ad-
vantage, but you will meet with difficulties in the representation
of all abstract words and all parts of speech denoting thought
relationships, such as particles, conjunctions, etc. With the
abstract words you could use all sorts of artifices. You will,
for instance, try to change the text of the article into different
words which may sound unusual, but whose components will be
more concrete and more adapted to representation. You will
then recall that most abstract words were concrete before their
meaning paled, and will therefore go back to the original con-
crete significance of these words as often as possible, and so you

146 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

will be glad to learn that you can represent the "possession"
of an object by the actual physical straddling of it.1 The dream
work does the same thing. Under such circumstances you can
hardly demand accuracy of representation. You will also have
to allow the dream-work to replace an element that is as hard
to depict as for instance, broken faith, by another kind of
rupture, a broken leg.2 In this way you will be able to smooth
away to some extent the crudity of imagery when the latter is
endeavoring to replace word expression.

In the representation of parts of speech that denote thought
relations, such as because, therefore, "but, etc., you have no such
aids; these constituent parts of the text will therefore be lost
in your translation into images. In the same way, the dream-
work resolves the content of the dream thought into its raw

1 ' ' besitzen, ' ' to straddle.

* While revising these pages I chanced upon a newspaper article that
I quote here as an unexpected supplement to the above lines.

THE PUNISHMENT OF GOD
A BEOKEN AEM FOR BEOKEN FAITH

Mrs. Anna M. the wife of a soldier in the reserve accused Mrs. Clemen-
tine C. of being untrue to her husband. The accusation reads that Mrs. C.
had carried on an illicit relationship with Karl M. while her own husband
was on the battlefield, from which he even sent her 70 Kronen a month.
Mrs. C. had received quite a lot of money from the husband of the plain-
tiff, while she and her children had to live in hunger and in misery.
Friends of her husband had told her that Mrs. C. had visited inns with
M. and had caroused there until late at night. The accused had even
asked the husband of the plaintiff before several infantrymen whether
he would not soon get a divorce from his "old woman" and live with
her. Mrs. C. 's housekeeper had also repeatedly seen the husband of the
plaintiff in her (Mrs. C.'s) apartment, in complete negligee.

Yesterday Mrs. C. denied before a judge in Leopoldstadt that she even
knew M ; there could be no question of intimate relation between them.

The witness, Albertine M., however, testified that Mrs. C. had kissed
the husband of the plaintiff and that she had surprised them at it.

When M. was called as a witness in an earlier proceeding he had denied
any intimate relation to the accused. Yesterday the judge received a
letter in which the witness retracts the statement he made in the first pro-
ceeding and admits that he had carried on a love affair with Mrs. C.,
until last June. He says that he only denied this relationship in the
former proceeding for the sake of the accused because before the pro-
ceeding she had come to him and begged on her knees that he should save
her and not confess. " To-day," wrote the witness, " I felt impelled to
make a full confession to the court, since I have ~brolcen my left arm and
this appears to me as the punishment of God for my transgression."

The judge maintained the penal offense had already become null and
void, whereupon the plaintiff withdre-v her accusation and the liberation
of the accused followed.

The Dream- Work 147

material of objects and activities. You may be satisfied if the
possibility is vouchsafed you to suggest certain relations, not
representable in themselves, in a more detailed elaboration of
the image. In quite the same way the dream-work succeeds in
expressing much of the content of the latent dream thought in
the formal peculiarities of the manifest dream, in its clearness
or vagueness, in its division into several parts, etc. The number
of fragmentary dreams into which the dream is divided corres-
ponds as a rule to the number of main themes, of thought
sequences in the latent dream ; a short preliminary dream often
stands as an introduction or a motivation to the complementary
dream which follows ; a subordinate clause in dream thought is
represented in the manifest dream as an interpolated change of
scene, etc. The form of the dream is itself, therefore, by no
means without significance and challenges interpretation. Dif-
ferent dreams of the same night often have the same meaning,
and testify to an increasing effort to control a stimulus of
growing urgency. In a single dream a particularly troublesome
element may be represented by "duplicates," that is, by numer-
ous symbols.

By continually comparing dream thought with the manifest
dream that replaces it, we learn all sorts of things for which
we were not prepared, as for instance, the fact that even the
nonsense and absurdity of the dream have meaning. Yes, on
this point the opposition between the medical and psycho-
analytic conception of the dream reaches a climax not previously
achieved. According to the former, the dream is senseless be-
cause the dreaming psychic activity has lost all power of critical
judgment; according to our theory, on the other hand, the
dream becomes senseless, whenever a critical judgment, contained
in the dream thought, wishes to express the opinion: "It is
nonsense." The dream which you all know, about the visit to
the theatre (three tickets 1 Fl. 50 Kr.) is a good example of this.
The opinion expressed here is: "It was nonsense to marry so
early."

In the same way, we discover in interpretation what is the
significance of the doubts and uncertainties so often expressed
by the dreamer as to whether a certain element really occurred
in the dream ; whether it was this or something else. As a rule
these doubts and uncertainties correspond to nothing in the

148 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

latent dream thought; they are occasioned throughout by the
working of the dream censor and are equivalent to an unsuc-
cessful attempt at suppression.

One of the most surprising discoveries is the manner in which
the dream-work deals with those things which are opposed to one
another in the latent dream. We already know that agreements
in the latent material are expressed in the manifest dream
by condensations. Now oppositions are treated in exactly the
same way as agreements and are, with special preference, ex-
pressed by the same manifest element. An element in a manifest
dream, capable of having an opposite, may therefore represent
itself as well as its opposite, or may do both simultaneously;
only the context can determine which translation is to be
chosen. It must follow from this that the particle "no" cannot
be represented in the dream, at least not unambiguously.

The development of languages furnishes us with a welcome
analogy for this surprising behavior on the part of the dream
work. Many scholars who do research work in languages have
maintained that in the oldest languages opposites — such as
strong, weak ; light, dark ; big, little — were expressed by the same
root word. (The Contradictory Sense of Primitive Words.)'
In old Egyptian, ken originally meant both strong and weak.
In conversation, misunderstanding in the use of such ambiguous
words was avoided by the tone of voice and by accompanying
gestures, in writing by the addition of so-called determinatives,
that is, by a picture that was itself not meant to be expressed.
Accordingly, if ken meant strong, the picture of an erect little
man was placed after the alphabetical signs, if ken, weak, was
meant, the picture of a cowering man followed. Only later,
by slight modifications of the original word, were two designa-
tions developed for the opposites which it denoted. In this way,
from ken meaning both strong and weak, there was derived a
ken, strong, and a ken, weak. It is said that not only the most
primitive languages in their last developmental stage, but also
the more recent ones, even the living tongues of to-day have
retained abundant remains of this primitive opposite meaning.
Let me give you a few illustrations of this taken from 0. Abel
(1884).

In Latin there are still such words of double meaning :

altus — high, deep, and sacer, sacred, accursed.

The Dream- Work 149

As examples of modifications of the same root, I cite :

clamare — to scream, clam — quiet, still, secret ;

siccus — dry, succus — juice.

And from the German :

Stimme — voice, stumm — dumb.

The comparison of related tongues yields a wealth of examples :

English: lock; German: Loch — hole, Lucke — gap.

English : cleave; German : kleben — to stick, to adhere.

The English without, is to-day used to mean ''not with"; that
"with" had the connotation of deprivation as well as that of
apportioning, is apparent from the compounds: withdraw,
withhold. The German wieder, again, closely resembles this.

Another peculiarity of dream-work finds it prototype in the
development of language. It occurred in ancient Egyptian as
well as in other later languages that the sequence of sounds of
the words was transposed to denote the same fundamental idea.
The following are examples from English and German :

Topf — pot; boat — tub; hurry — Ruhe (rest, quiet).

Balken (beam) — Eloben (mallet) — club.

From the Latin and the German :

capere (to seize) — packen (to seize, to grasp).

Inversions such as occur here in the single word are effected
in a very different way by the dream-work. We already know
the inversion of the sense, substitution by the opposite. Besides
there are inversions of situations, of relations between two
people, and so in dreams we are in a sort of topsy-turvy
world. In a dream it is frequently the rabbit that shoots
the hunter. Further inversion occurs in the sequence of events,
so that in the dream the cause is placed after the effect. It is
like a performance in a third-rate theatre, where the hero falls
before the shot which kills him is fired from the wings. Or
there are dreams in which the whole sequence of the elements
is inverted, so that in the interpretation one must take the last
first, and the first last, in order to obtain a meaning. You will
recall from our study of dream symbolism that to go or fall into
the water means the same as to come out of it, namely, to give
birth to, or to be born, and that mounting stairs or a ladder
means the same as going down. The advantage that dream dis-
tortions may gain from such freedom of representation, is un-
mistakable.

150 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

These features of the dream-work may be called archaic. They
are connected with ancient systems of expression, ancient lan-
guages and literatures, and involve the same difficulties which
we shall deal with later in a critical connection.

Now for some other aspects of the matter. In the dream-work
it is plainly a question of translating the latent thoughts, ex-
pressed in words, into psychic images, in the main, of a visual
kind. Now our thoughts were developed from such psychic
images ; their first material and the steps which led up to them
were psychic impressions, or to be more exact, the memory images
of these psychic impressions. Only later were words attached to
these and then combined into thoughts. The dream-work there-
fore puts the thoughts through a regressive treatment, that is,
one that retraces the steps in their development. In this re-
gression, all that has been added to the thoughts as a new
contribution in the course of the development of the memory
pictures must fall away.

This, then, is the dream-work. In view of the processes that
we have discovered about it, our interest in the manifest dream
was forced into the background. I shall, however, devote a few
remarks to the latter, since it is after all the only thing that is
positively known to us.

It is natural that the manifest dream should lose its import-
ance for us. It must be a matter of indifference to us whether
it is well composed or resolved into a series of disconnected single
images. Even when its exterior seems to be significant, we know
that it has been developed by means of dream distortion and may
have as little organic connection with the inner content of the
dream as the facade of an Italian church has with its structure
and ground plan. At other times this facade of the dream, too,
has its significance, in that it reproduces with little or no dis-
tortion an important part of the latent dream thought. But
we cannot know this before we have put the dream through a
process of interpretation and reached a decision as to what
amount of distortion has taken place. A similar doubt pre-
vails when two elements in the dream seem to have been brought
into close relations to one another. This may be a valuable hint,
suggesting that we may join together those manifest thoughts
which correspond to the elements in the latent dream; yet at

The Dream- Work 151

Diner times we are convinced that what belongs together in
thought has been torn apart in the dream.

As a general rule we must refrain from trying to explain one
part of the manifest dream by another, as if the dream were
coherently conceived and pragmatically represented. At the
most it is comparable to a Breccian stone, produced by the
fusion of various minerals in such a way that the markings it
shows are entirely different from those of the original mineral
constituents. There is actually a part of the dream-work, the
so-called secondary treatment, whose function it is to develop
something unified, something approximately coherent from the
final products of the dream-work. In so doing the material is
often arranged in an entirely misleading sense and insertions
are made wherever it seems necessary.

On the other hand, we must not over-estimate the dream-
work, nor attribute too much to it. The processes which we have
enumerated tell the full tale of its functioning; beyond con-
densing, displacing, representing plastically, and then subject-
ing the whole to a secondary treatment, it can do nothing.
Whatever of judgment, of criticism, of surprise, and of deduc-
tion are to be found in the dream are not products of the
dream-work and are only very seldom signs of afterthoughts
about the dream, but are generally parts of the latent dream
thought, which have passed over into the manifest dream, more
or less modified and adapted to the context. In the matter of
composing speeches, the dream-work can also do nothing. Ex-
cept for a few examples, the speeches in the dream are imitations
and combinations of speeches heard or made by oneself during
the day, and which have been introduced into the latent thought,
either as material or as stimuli for the dream. Neither can the
dream pose problems ; when these are found in the dream, they
are in the main combinations of numbers, semblances of examples
that are quite absurd or merely copies of problems in the latent
dream thought. Under these conditions it is not surprising
that the interest which has attached itself to the dream-work
is soon deflected from it to the latent dream thoughts which
are revealed in more or less distorted form in the manifest
dream. It is not justifiable, however, to have this change go
so far that in a theoretical consideration one regularly substitutes
the latent dream thought for the dream itself, and maintains

152 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

of the latter what can hold only for the former. It is odd that
the results of psychoanalysis should be misused for such an
exchange. "Dream" can mean nothing but the result of the
dream-work, that is, the form into which the latent dream
thoughts have been translated by the dream-work.

Dream-work is a process of a very peculiar sort, the like of
which has hitherto not been discovered in psychic life. These
condensations, displacements, regressive translations of thoughts
into pictures, are new discoveries which richly repay our efforts
in the field of psychoanalysis. You will realize from the parallel
to the dream-work, what connections psychoanalytic studies
will reveal with other fields, especially with the development of
speech and thought. You can only surmise the further sig-
nificance of these connections when you hear that the mechanism
of the dream structure is the model for the origin of neurotic
symptoms.

I know too that we cannot as yet estimate the entire con-
tribution that this work has made to psychology. We shall only
indicate the new proofs that have been given of the existence
of unconscious psychic acts — for such are the latent dream
thoughts — and the unexpectedly wide approach to the under-
standing of the unconscious psychic life that dream interpreta-
tion opens up to us.

The time has probably come, however, to illustrate separately,
by various little examples of dreams, the connected facts for
which you have been prepared.

TWELFTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Analysis of Sample Dreams

I HOPE you will not be disappointed if I again lay before
you excerpts from dream analyses instead of inviting you
to participate in the interpretation of a beautiful long
dream. You will say that after so much preparation you
ought to have this right, and that after the successful interpreta-
tion of so many thousands of dreams it should long ago have be-
come possible to assemble a collection of excellent dream samples
with which we could demonstrate all our assertions concerning
dream-work and dream thoughts. Yes, but the difficulties which
stand in the way of the fulfillment of your wish are too many.

First of all, I must confess to you that no one practices dream
interpretation as his main occupation. When does one interpret
dreams? Occasionally one can occupy himself with the dream
of some friend, without any special purpose, or else he may
work with his own dreams for a time in order to school himself
in psychoanalytic method; most often, however, one deals with
the dreams of nervous individuals who are undergoing analytic
treatment. These latter dreams are excellent material, and in no
way inferior to those of normal persons, but one is forced by the
technique of the treatment to subordinate dream analysis to
therapeutic aims and to pass over a large number of dreams
after having derived something from them that is of use in the
treatment. Many dreams we meet with during the treatment
are, as a matter of fact, impossible of complete analysis. Since
they spring from the total mass of psychic material which is
still unknown to us, their understanding becomes possible only
after the completion of the cure. Besides, to tell you such
dreams would necessitate the disclosure of all the secrets con-
cerning a neurosis. That will not do for us, since we have taken
the dream as preparation for the study of the neuroses.

153

154 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

I know you would gladly leave this material, and would prefer
to hear the dreams of healthy persons, or your own dreams
explained. But that is impossible because of the content of
these dreams. One can expose neither himself, nor another
whose confidence he has won, so inconsiderately as would result
from a thorough interpretation of his dreams — which, as you
already know, refer to the most intimate things of his person-
ality, In addition to this difficulty, caused by the nature of
the material, there is another that must be considered when
communicating a dream. You know the dream seems strange
even to the dreamer himself, let alone to one who does not know
the dreamer. Our literature is not poor in good and detailed
dream analyses. I myself have published some in connection
with case histories. Perhaps the best example of a dream inter-
pretation is the one published by 0. Rank, being two related
dreams of a young girl, covering about two pages of print, the
analysis covering seventy-six pages. I would need about a
whole semester in order to take you through such a task. If
we select a longer or more markedly distorted dream, we have
to make so many explanations, we must make use of so many-
free associations and recollections, must go into so many by-
paths, that a lecture on the subject would be entirely unsatis-
factory and inconclusive. So I must ask you to be content
with what is more easily obtained, with the recital of small bits
of dreams of neurotic persons, in which we may be able to
recognize this or that isolated fact. Dream symbols are the
most easily demonstrable, and after them, certain peculiarities
of regressive dream representations.1 I shall tell you why I
considered each of the following dreams worthy of communica-
tion.

1. A dream, consisting of only two brief pictures: "The
dreamer's uncle is smoking a cigarette, although it is Saturday.
A woman caresses him as though he were her child."

In commenting on the first picture, the dreamer (a Jew)
remarks that his uncle is a pious man who never did, and never
would do, anything so sinful as smoking on the Sabbath. As to
the woman of the second picture, he has no free associations
other than his mother. These two pictures or thoughts should

1 This highly technical concept is explained in The Interpretation of
Preams, Chap. VII, Sec. (b) pp. 422 et seq.

Analysis of Sample Dreams 155

obviously be brought into connection with each other, but how ?
Since he expressly rules out the reality of his uncle's action,
then it is natural to interpolate an "if." "// my uncle, that
pious man, should smoke a cigarette on Saturday, then I could
also permit my mother's caresses." This obviously means that
the mother's caresses are prohibited, in the same manner as is
smoking on Saturday, to a pious Jew. You will recall, I told
you that all relations between the dream thoughts disappear in
the dream-work, that these relations are broken up into their
raw material, and that it is the task of interpretation to re-
interpolate the omitted connections.

2. Through my publications on dreams I have become, in
certain respects, the public consultant on matters pertaining to
dreams, and for many years I have been receiving communica-
tions from the most varied sources, in which dreams are related
to me or presented to me for my judgment. I am of course
grateful to all those persons who include with the story of the
dream, enough material to make an interpretation possible, or
who give such an interpretation themselves. It is in this cate-
gory that the following dream belongs, the dream of a Munich
physician in the year 1910. I select it because It goes to show
how impossible of understanding a dream generally is before the
dreamer has given us what information he has about it. I sus-
pect that at bottom you consider the ideal dream interpretation
that in which one simply inserts the meaning of the symbols,
and would like to lay aside the technique of free association to
the dream elements. I wish to disabuse your minds of this
harmful error.

"On July 13, 1910, toward morning, I dreamed that I was
bicycling down a street in Tubingen, when a brown Dachshund
tore after me and caught me by the heel. A bit further on I get
off, seat myself on a step, and begin to beat the beast, which has
clenched its teeth tight. (I feel no discomfort from the biting
or the whole scene.} Two elderly ladies are sitting opposite me
and watching me with grins on their faces. Then I wake up
and, as so often happens to me, the whole dream becomes per-
fectly clear to me in this moment of transition to the waking
state.'9

Symbols are of little use in this case. The dreamer, however,
informs us, ' ' I lately fell in love with a girl, just from seeing her

156 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

on the street, but had no means of becoming acquainted with her.
The most pleasant means might have been the Dachshund, since
I am a great lover of animals, and also felt that the girl was in
sympathy with this characteristic." He also adds that he re-
peatedly interfered in the fights of scuffling dogs with great
dexterity and frequently to the great amazement of the spec-
tators. Thus we learn that the girl, who pleased him, was always
accompanied by this particular dog. This girl, however, was
disregarded in the manifest dream, and there remained only
the dog which he associates with her. Perhaps the elderly ladies
who simpered at him took the place of the girl. The remainder
of what he tells us is not enough to explain this point. Riding
a bicycle in the dream is a direct repetition of the remembered
situation. He had never met the girl with the dog except when
he was on his bicycle.

3. When anyone has lost a loved one, he produces dreams of
a special sort for a long time afterward, dreams in which the
knowledge of death enters into the most remarkable compro-
mises with the desire to have the deceased alive again. At one
time the deceased is dead and yet continues to live on because
he does not know that he is dead, and would die completely only
if he knew it; at another time he is half dead and half alive,
and each of these conditions has its particular signs. One cannot
simply label these dreams nonsense, for to come to life again is
no more impossible in the dream than, for example, it is in the
fairy story, in which it occurs as a very frequent fate. As far
as I have been able to analyze such dreams, I have always found
them to be capable of a sensible solution, but that the pious wish
to recall the deceased to life goes about expressing itself by the
oddest methods. Let me tell you such a dream, which seems
queer and senseless enough, and analysis of which will show
you many of the points for which you have been prepared by
our theoretical discussions. The dream is that of a man who
had lost his father many years previously.

"Father is dead, but has been exhumed and looks badly. He
goes on living, and the dreamer does everything to prevent him
from noticing that fact." Then the dream goes on to other
things, apparently irrelevant.

The father is dead, that we know. That he was exhumed is
not really true, nor is the truth of the rest of the dream im-

Analysis of Sample Dreams 157

portant. But the dreamer tells us that when he came back
from his father's funeral, one of his teeth began to ache. He
wanted to treat this tooth according to the Jewish precept, ''If
thy tooth offend thee, pluck it out," and betook himself to the
dentist. But the latter said, "One does not simply pull a tooth
out, one must have patience with it. I shall inject something to
kill the nerve. Come again in three days and then I will take
it out."

"This 'taking it out','' says the dreamer suddenly, "is the
exhuming. ' '

Is the dreamer right? It does not correspond exactly, only
approximately, for the tooth is not taken out, but something that
has died off is taken out of it. But after our other experiences
we are probably safe in believing that the dream work is capable
of such inaccuracies. It appears that the dreamer condensed,
fused into one, his dead father and the tooth that was killed
but retained. No wonder then, that in the manifest dream some-
thing senseless results, for it is impossible for everything that is
said of the tooth to fit the father. What is it that serves as
something intermediate between tooth and father and makes
this condensation possible?

This interpretation must be correct, however, for the dreamer
says that he is acquainted with the saying that when one dreams
of losing a tooth it means that one is going to lose a member
of his family.

"We know that this popular interpretation is incorrect, or at
least is correct only in a scurrilous sense. For that reason it is
all the more surprising to find this theme thus touched upon in
the background of other portions of the dream content.

Without any further urging, the dreamer now begins to tell
of his father's illness and death as well as of his relations with
him. The father was sick a long time, and his care and treat-
ment cost him, the son, much money. And yet it was never too
much for him, he never grew impatient, never wished it might
end soon. He boasts of his true Jewish piety toward his father,
of rigid adherence to the Jewish precepts. But are you not
struck by a contradiction in the thoughts of the dream? He
had identified tooth with father. As to the tooth he wanted to
follow the Jewish precept that carries out its own judgment,
"pull it out if it causes pain and annoyance." He had also been

158 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

anxious to follow the precept of the law with regard to his
father, which in this case, however, tells him to disregard trouble
and expense, to take all the burdens upon himself and to let no
hostile intent arise toward the object which causes the pain.
Would not the agreement be far more compelling if he had
really developed feelings toward his father similar to those about
his sick tooth ; that is, had he wished that a speedy death should
put an end to that superfluous, painful and expensive existence ?

I do not doubt that this was really his attitude toward his
father during the latter 's extended illness, and that his boastful
assurances of filial piety were intended to distract his attention
from these recollections. Under such circumstances, the death-
wish directed toward the parent generally becomes active, and
disguises itself in phrases of sympathetic consideration such as,
"It would really be a blessed release for him." But note well
that we have here overcome an obstacle in the latent dream
thoughts themselves. The first part of these thoughts was surely
unconscious only temporarily, that is to say, during the dream-
work, while the inimical feelings toward the father might have
been permanently unconscious, dating perhaps from childhood,
occasionally slipping into consciousness, shyly and in disguise,
during his father 's illness. "We can assert this with even greater
certainty of other latent thoughts which have made unmistakable
contributions to the dream content. To be sure, none of these
inimical feelings toward the father can be discovered in the
dream. But when we search a childhood history for the root
of such enmity toward the father, we recollect that fear of the
father arises because the latter, even in the earliest years, opposes
the boy's sex activities, just as he is ordinarily forced to oppose
them again, after puberty, for social motives. This relation to
the father applies also to our dreamer; there had been mixed
with his love for him much respect and fear, having its source
in early sex intimidation.

From the onanism complex we can now explain the other
parts of the manifest dream. "He looks badly" does, to be sure,
allude to another remark of the dentist, that it looks badly to
have a tooth missing in that place ; but at the same time it refers
to the "looking badly" by which the young man betrayed, or
feared to betray, his excessive sexual activity during puberty.
It was not without lightening his own heart that the dreamer

Analysis of Sample Dreams 159

transposed the bad looks from himself to his father in the mani-
fest content, an inversion of the dream work with which you are
familiar. "He goes on living since then," disguises itself with
the wish to have him alive again as well as with the promise
of the dentist that the tooth will be preserved. A very subtle
phrase, however, is the following: "The dreamer does every-
thing to prevent him, (the father} from noticing the fact/' a
phrase calculated to lead us to conclude that he is dead. Yet
the only meaningful conclusion is again drawn from the onanism
complex, where it is a matter of course for the young man to do
everything in order to hide his sex life from his father. Re-
member, in conclusion, that we were constantly forced to inter-
pret the so-called tooth-ache dreams as dreams dealing with the
subject of onanism and the punishment that is feared.

You now see how this incomprehensible dream came into
being, by the creation of a remarkable and misleading condensa-
tion, by the fact that all the ideas emerge from the midst of the
latent thought process, and by the creation of ambiguous sub-
stitute formations for the most hidden and, at the time, most
remote of these thoughs.

4. We have tried repeatedly to understand those prosaic and
banal dreams which have nothing foolish or repulsive about
them, but which cause us to ask: "Why do we dream such un-
important stuff?" So I shall give you a new example of this
kind, three dreams belonging together, all of which were
dreamed in the same night by a young woman.

(a). "She is going through the hall of her house and strikes
her head against the low^hanging chandelier, so that her head
bleeds."

She has no reminiscence to contribute, nothing that really
happened. The information she gives leads in quite another
direction. "You know how badly my hair is falling out. Mother
said to me yesterday, 'My child, if it goes on like this, you will
have a head like the cheek of a buttock. ' ' Thus the head here
stands for the other part of the body. We can understand the
chandelier symbolically without other help ; all objects that can
be lengthened are symbols of the male organ. Thus the dream
deals with a bleeding at the lower end of the body, which results
from its collision with the male organ. This might still be
ambiguous; her further associations show that it has to do with

160 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

her belief that menstrual bleeding results from sexual inter-
course with a man, a bit of sexual theory believed by many im-
mature girls.

(&). "She sees a deep hole in the vineyard which she knows
was made by pulling out a tree." Herewith her remark that
f(she misses the tree." She means that she did not see the tree
in the dream, but the same phrase serves to express another
thought which symbolic interpretation makes completely certain.
The dream deals with another bit of the infantile sex theory,
namely, with the belief that girls originally had the same genitals
as boys and that the later conformation resulted from castration
(pulling out of a tree).

(c). "She is standing in front of the drawer of her writing
table, with which she is so familiar that she knmvs immediately
if anybody has been through it." The writing-table drawer, like
every drawer, chest, or box, stands for the female genital. She
knows that one can recognize from the genital the signs of sexual
intercourse (and, as she thinks, even of any contact at all) and
she has long been afraid of such a conviction. I believe that
the accent in all these dreams is to be laid upon the idea of
knowing. She is reminded of the time of her childish sexual
investigations, the results of which made her quite proud at
the time.

5. Again a little bit of symbolism. But this time I must
first describe the psychic situation in a short preface. A man
who spent the night with a woman describes his partner as
one of those motherly natures whose desire for a child irresistibly
breaks through during intercourse. The circumstances of their
meeting, however, necessitated a precaution whereby the fertiliz-
ing discharge of semen is kept away from the womb. Upon
awaking after this night, the woman tells the following dream:

" An officer with a red cap follows her on the street. She flees
from him, runs up the staircase, and he follows after her.
Breathlessly she reaches her apartment and slams and locks the.
door behind her. He remains outside and as she looks through a
peephole she sees him sitting outside on a bench and weeping."

You undoubtedly recognize in the pursuit by an officer with
a red cap, and the breathless stair climbing, the representation
of the sexual act. The fact that the dreamer locks herself in
against the pursuer may serve as an example of that inversion

Analysis of Sample Dreams 161

which is so frequently used in dreams, for in reality it was the
man who withdrew before the completion of the act. In the
same way her grief has been transposed to the partner, it is he
who weeps in the dream, whereby the discharge of the semen is
also indicated.

You must surely have heard that in psychoanalysis it is always
maintained that all dreams have a sexual meaning. Now you
yourselves are in a position to form a judgment as to the in-
correctness of this reproach. You have become acquainted with
the wish-fulfillment dreams, which deal with the satisfying of
the plainest needs, of hunger, of thirst, of longing for freedom,
the dreams of convenience and of impatience and likewise the
purely covetous and egoistic dreams. But that the markedly
distorted dreams preponderantly — though again not exclusively
— give expression to sex wishes, is a fact you may certainly keep
in mind as one of the results of psychoanalytical research.

6. I have a special motive for piling up examples of the use
of symbols in dreams. At our first meeting I complained of
how hard it is, when lecturing on psychoanalysis, to demonstrate
the facts in order to awaken conviction ; and you very probably
have come to agree with me since then. But the various asser-
tions of psychoanalysis are so closely linked that one 's conviction
can easily extend from one point to a larger part of the whole.
We might say of psychoanalysis that if we give it our little
finger it promptly demands the whole hand. Anyone who was
convinced by the explanation of errors can no longer logically
disbelieve in all the rest of psychoanalysis. A second equally
accessible point of approach is furnished by dream symbolism.
I shall give you a dream, already published, of a peasant woman,
whose husband is a watchman and who has certainly never
heard anything about dream symbolism and psychoanalysis.
You may then judge for yourselves whether its explanation with
the help of sex symbols can be called arbitrary and forced.

"Then someone broke into her house and she called in fright
for a watchman. But the latter had gone companionably into
a church together with two 'beauties.' A number of steps led up
to the church. Behind the church was a hill, and on its crest a
thick forest. The watchman was fitted out with a helmet, gorget
and a cloak. He had a full brown beard. The two were going
along peacefully with the watchman, had sack-like aprons bound

162 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

around their hips. There was a path from the church to the
hill. This was overgrown on both sides with grass and under-
brush that kept getting thicker and that became a regular forest
on the crest of the hill."

You will recognize the symbols without any difficulty. The
male genital is represented by a trinity of persons, the female
by a landscape with a chapel, hill and forest. Again you en-
counter steps as the symbol of the sexual act. That which is
called a hill in the dream has the same name in anatomy, namely,
mons veneris, the mount of Venus.

7. I have another dream which can be solved by means of
inserting symbols, a dream that is remarkable and convincing
because the dreamer himself translated all the symbols, even
though he had had no preliminary knowledge of dream interpre-
tation. This situation is very unusual and the conditions essen-
tial to its occurrence are not clearly known.

"He is going for a walk with his father in some place which
must be the Prater,* for one can see the rotunda and before it a
smaller building to which is anchored a captive balloon, which,
however, seems fairly slack. His father asks him what all that
is for; he wonders at it himself but explains it to his father.
Then they come to a courtyard in which there lies spread out a
big sheet of metal. His father wants to break off a big piece of it
for himself but first looks about him to see if anyone might see
him. He says to him that all he needs to do is to tell the inspector
and then he can take some without more ado. There are steps
leading from this courtyard down into a pit, the walls of which
are upholstered with some soft material rather like a leather arm
chair. At the end of this pit is a longish platform and then a
new pit begins ..."

The dreamer himself interprets as follows: "The rotunda is
my genital, the balloon in front of it is my penis, of whose
slackness I have been complaining." Thus one may translate
in more detail, that the rotunda is the posterior — a part of the
body which the child regularly considers as part of the genital —
while the smaller building before it is the scrotum. In the dream
his father asks him what all that is for ; that is to say, he asks
the object and function of the genitals. It is easy to turn this
situation around so that the dreamer is the one who does the

'The principal street of Vienna.

Analysis of Sample Dreams 163

asking. Since no such questioning of the father ever took place
in real life, we must think of the thought of this dream as a
wish or consider it in the light of a supposition, ' ' If I had asked
father for sexual enlightenment. ' ' We will find the continuation
of this idea in another place shortly.

The courtyard, in which the sheet metal lies spread out, is not
to be considered primarily as symbolical but refers to the father 's
place of business. For reasons of discretion I have substituted
the "sheet metal" for another material with which the father
deals, without changing anything in the literal wording of the
dream. The dreamer entered his father's business and took
great offense at the rather dubious practices upon which the
profits depended to a large extent. For this reason the continua-
tion of the above idea of the dream might be expressed as "if I
had asked him, he would only have deceived me as he deceives
his customers. ' ' The dreamer himself gives us the second mean-
ing of "breaking off the metal," which serves to represent the
commercial dishonesty. He says it means masturbation. Not
only have we long since become familiar with this symbol, but
the fact also is in agreement. The secrecy of masturbation is
expressed by means of its opposite — "It can be safely done
openly." Again our expectations are fulfilled by the fact that
masturbatory activity is referred to as the father's, just as the
questioning was in the first scene of the dream. Upon being
questioned he immediately gives the interpretation of the pit as
the vagina on account of the soft upholstering of its walls. I
will add arbitrarily that the "going down" like the more usual
"going up" is meant to describe the sexual intercourse in the
vagina.

Such details as the fact that the first pit ends in a platform
and then a new one begins, he explains himself as having been
taken from his own history. He practiced intercourse for a
while, then gave it up on account of inhibitions, and now hopes
to be able to resume it as a result of the treatment.

8. The two following dreams are those of a foreigner, of very
polygamous tendencies, and I give them to you as proof for the
claim that one's ego appears in every dream, even in those
in which it is disguised in the manifest content. The trunks
in the dream are a symbol for woman.

(a). "He is to take a trip, his luggage is placed on a carriage

164 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

to be taken to the station, and there are many trunks piled up,
among which are two big black ones like sample trunks. He
says, consolingly, to someone, 'Well, they are only going as far
as the station with us.' '

In reality he does travel with a great deal of luggage, but he
also brings many tales of women with him when he comes for
treatment. The two black trunks stand for two dark women
who play the chief part in his life at present. One of them
wanted to travel to Vienna after him, but he telegraphed her
not to, upon my advice.

(&). A scene at the customs house: "A fellow traveler opens
his trunk and says indifferently while puffing a cigarette,
'There's nothing in here.' The customs official seems to believe
him but delves into the trunk once more and finds something
particularly forbidden. The traveler then says resignedly,
'Well, there's no help for it.' '

He himself is the traveler, I the customs official. Though'
otherwise very frank in his confessions, he has on this occasion
tried to conceal from me a new relationship which he had struck
up with a lady whom he was justified in believing that I knew.
The painful situation of being convicted of this is transposed
into a strange person so that he himself apparently is not present
in the dream.

9. The following is an example of a symbol which I have not
yet mentioned :

"He meets his sister in company with two friends who are
themselves sisters. He extends his hand to both of them but not
to his sister."

This is no allusion to a real occurrence. His thoughts instead
lead him back to a time when his observations made him wonder
why a girl's breasts develop so late. The two sisters, therefore,
are the breasts. He would have liked to touch them if only it
had not been his sister.

10. Let me add an example of a symbol of death in a dream :
"He is walking with two persons whose name he knows but

has forgotten. By the time he is awake, over a very high, steep
iron bridge. Suddenly the two people are gone and he sees a
ghostly man with a cap, and clad in white. He asks this man
whether he is the telegraph messenger . . , No. Or is he a
coachman f No. Then he goes on," and even in the dream he is

Analysis of Sample Dreams 165

in great fear. After waking he continues , the dream by a
phantasy in which the iron bridge suddenly breaks, and he
plunges into the abyss.

When the dreamer emphasizes the fact that certain individ-
uals in a dream are unknown, that he has forgotten their names,
they are generally persons standing in very close relationship
to the dreamer. This dreamer has two sisters ; if it be true, as
his dream indicates, that he wished these two dead, then it would
only be justice if the fear of death fell upon him for so doing.
In connection with the telegraph messenger he remarks that such
people always bring bad news. Judged by his uniform he might
also have been the lamp-lighter, who, however, also extinguishes
the lamps — in other words, as the spirit of death extinguishes
the flame of life. The coachman reminds him of Uhland 's poem
of King Karl's ocean voyage and also of a dangerous lake trip
with two companions in which he played the role of the king in
the poem. In connection with the iron bridge he remembers a
recent accident and the stupid saying "Life is a suspension
bridge."

11. The following may serve as another example of the rep-
resentation of death in a dream: "An unknown man leaves a
Hack bordered visiting card for him."

12. The following dream will interest you for several reasons,
though it is one arising from a neurotic condition among other
things :

"He is traveling in a train. The train stops in an open field.
He thinks it means that there is going to be an accident, that he
must save himself, and he goes through all the compartments of
the train and strikes dead everyone whom he meets, conductors,
engine drivers, etc."

In connection with this he tells a story that one of his friends
told him. An insane man was being transported in a private
compartment in a certain place in Italy, but through some mis-
take another traveler was put in the same compartment.
The insane man murdered his fellow passenger. Thus he
identifies himself with this insane person and bases his
right so to do upon a compulsive idea which was then
torturing him, namely, he must "do away with all per-
sons who knew of his failings." But then he himself
finds a better motivation which gave rise to the dream. The day

166 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

before, in the theatre, he again saw the girl whom he had ex-
pected to marry but whom he had left because she had given him
cause for jealousy. With a capacity for intense jealousy such
as he has, he would really be insane if he married. In other
words, he considers her so untrustworthy that out of jealousy
he would have to strike dead all the persons who stood in his
way. Going through a series of rooms, of compartments in this
case, we have already learned to recognize as the symbol of
marriage (the opposite of monogamy).

In connection with the train stopping in the open country and
his fear of an accident, he tells the following: Once, when he
was traveling in a train and it came to a sudden stop outside of
a station, a young lady in the compartment remarked that per-
haps there was going to be a collision, and that in that case the
best precaution would be to pull one's legs up. But this
"legs up" had also played a role in the many walks and excur-
sions into the open which he had taken with the girl in that
happy period in their first love. Thus it is a new argument for
the idea that he would have to be crazy in order to marry her
now. But from my knowledge of the situation I can assume
with certainty that the wish to be as crazy as that nevertheless
exists in him.

THIRTEENTH LECTUKE

THE DREAM

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism in the Dream

LET us revert to our conclusion that the dream-work,
under the influence of the dream censorship, transforms
the latent dream thoughts into some other form of
expression. The latent thoughts are no other than the
conscious thoughts known to us in our waking hours; the new
mode of expression is incomprehensible to us because of its
many-sided features. We have said it extends back to conditions
of our intellectual development which we have long progressed
beyond, to the language of pictures, the symbol-representations,
perhaps to those conditions which were in force before the de-
velopment of our language of thought. So we called the mode
of expression of the dream-work the archaic or regressive.

You may conclude that as a result of the deeper study of the
dream-work we gain valuable information about the rather un-
known beginnings of our intellectual development. I trust this
will be true, but this work has not, up to the present time, been
undertaken. The antiquity into which the dream-work carries
us back is of a double aspect, firstly, the individual antiquity,
childhood; and, secondly (in so far as every individual in his
childhood lives over again in some more or less abbreviated
manner the entire development of the human race), also this
antiquity, the philogenetic. That we shall be able to differentiate
which part of the latent psychic proceeding has its source in the
individual, and which part in the philogenetic antiquity is not
improbable. In this connection it appears to me, for example,
that the symbolic relations which the individual has never
learned are ground for the belief that they should be regarded as
a philogenetic inheritance.

However, this is not the only archaic characteristic of the

167

168 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

dream. You probably all know from your own experiences the
peculiar amnesia, that is, loss of memory, concerning childhood.
I mean the fact that the first years, to the fifth, sixth or eighth,
have not left the same traces in our memory as have later
experiences. One meets with individual persons, to be sure, who
can boast of a continuous memory from the very beginning to
the present day, but the other condition, that of a gap in the
memory, is far more frequent. I believe we have not laid
enough stress on this fact. The child is able to speak well at the
age of two, it soon shows that it can become adjusted to the
most complicated psychic situations, and makes remarks which
years later are retold to it, but which it has itself entirely for-
gotten. Besides, the memory in the early years is more facile,
because it is less burdened than in later years. Nor is there
any reason for considering the memory-function as a particularly
high or difficult psychic performance; in fact, the contrary is
true, and you can find a good memory in persons who stand
very low intellectually.

As a second peculiarity closely related to the first, I must point
out that certain well-preserved memories, for the most part
formatively experienced, stand forth in this memory-void which
surrounds the first years of childhood and do not justify this
hypothesis. Our memory deals selectively with its later ma-
terials, with impressions which come to us in later life. It
retains the important and discards the unimportant. This is
not true of the retained childhood memories. They do not be-
speak necessarily important experiences of childhood, not even
such as from the viewpoint of the child need appear of im-
portance. They are often so banal and intrinsically so meaning-
less that we ask ourselves in wonder why just these details have
escaped being forgotten. I once endeavored to approach the
riddle of childhood amnesia and the interrupted memory rem-
nants with the help of analysis, and I arrived at the conclusion
that in the case of the child, too, only the important has re-
mained in the memory, except that by means of the process of
condensation already known to you, and especially by means
of distortion, the important is represented in the memory by
something that appears unimportant. For this reason I have
called these childhood memories "disguise-memories," memories

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism 169

used to conceal; by means of careful analysis one is able to
develop out of them everything that is forgotten.

In psychoanalytic treatment we are regularly called upon to
fill out the infantile memory gaps, and in so far as the cure is to
any degree successful, we are able again to bring to light the
content of the childhood years thus clouded in forgetfulness.
These impressions have never really been forgotten, they have
only been inaccessible, latent, have belonged to the unconscious.
But sometimes they bob up out of the unconscious spontaneously,
and, as a matter of fact, this is what happens in dreams. It is
apparent that the dream life knows how to find the entrance to
these latent, infantile experiences. Beautiful examples of this
occur in literature, and I myself can present such an example.
I once dreamed in a certain connection of a person who must
have performed some service for me, and whom I clearly saw.
He was a one-eyed man, short in stature, stout, his head deeply
sunk into his neck. I concluded from the content that he was a
physician. Luckily I was able to ask my mother, who was still
living, how the physician in my birth-place, which I left when
I was three years old, looked, and I learned from her that he
had one eye, was short and stout, with his head sunk into his
neck, and also learned at what forgotten mishap he had been of
service to me. This control over the forgotten material of child-
hood years is, then, a further archaic tendency of the dream.

The same information may be made use of in another of the
puzzles that have presented themselves to us. You will recall
how astonished people were when we came to the conclusion
that the stimuli which gave rise to dreams were extremely bad
and licentious sexual desires which have made dream-censorship
and dream-distortion necessary. After we have interpreted such
a dream for the dreamer and he, in the most favorable circum-
stances does not attack the interpretation itself, he almost always
asks the question whence such a wish comes, since it seems
foreign to him and he feels conscious of just the opposite sensa-
tions. "We need not hesitate to point out this origin. These evil
wish-impulses have their origin in the past, often in a past which
is not too far away. It can be shown that at one time they were
known and conscious, even if they no longer are so. The woman,
whose dream is interpreted to mean that she would like to see
her seventeen-year old daughter dead, discovers under our guid-

170 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ance that she in fact at one time entertained this wish. The child
is the fruit of an unhappy marriage, which early ended in a sep-
aration. Once, while the child was still in the womb, and after a
tense scene with her husband, she beat her body with her fists
in a fit of anger, in order to kill the child. How many mothers
who to-day love their children tenderly, perhaps too tenderly,
received them unwillingly, and at the time wished that the life
within them would not develop further; indeed, translated this
wish into various actions, happily harmless. The later death-
wish against some loved one, which seems so strange, also has its
origin in early phases of the relationship to that person.

The father, the interpretation of whose dream shows that he
wishes for the death of his eldest and favorite child, must be
reminded of the fact that at one time this wish was no stranger
to him. "While the child was still a suckling, this man, who was
unhappy in his choice of a wife, often thought that if the little
being that meant nothing to him would die, he would again be
free, and would make better use of his freedom. A like origin
may be found for a large number of similar hate impulses ; they
are recollections of something that belonged to the past, were
once conscious and played their parts in the psychic life. You
will wish to conclude therefrom that such wishes and such dreams
cannot occur if such changes in the relationship to a person have
not taken place; if such relationship was always of the same
character. I am ready to admit this, only wish to warn you
that you are to take into consideration not the exact terms of
the dream, but the meaning thereof according to its interpre-
tation. It may happen that the manifest dream of the death of
some loved person has only made use of some frightful mask,
that it really means something entirely different, or that the
loved person serves as a concealing substitute for some other.

But the same circumstances will call forth another, mole
difficult question. You say : ' ' Granted this death wish was pres-
ent at some time or other, and is substantiated by memory, yet
this is no explanation. It is long outlived, to-day it can be
present only in the unconscious and as an empty, emotionless
memory, but not as a strong impulse. Why should it be recalled
by the dream at all ? " This question is justified. The attempt to
answer it would lead us far afield and necessitate taking up a
position in one of the most important points of dream study.

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism 171

But I must remain within the bounds of our discussion and prac-
tice restraint. Prepare yourselves for the temporary abstention.
Let us be satisfied with the circumstantial proof that this out-
lived wish can be shown to act as a dream stimulator and let us
continue the investigation to see whether or not other evil wishes
admit of the same derivation out of the past.

Let us continue with the removal or death-wish which most
frequently can be traced back to the unbounded egoism of the
dreamer. Such a wish can very often be shown to be the inciting
cause of the dream. As often as someone has been in our way
in life — and how often must this happen in the complicated rela-
tionships of life — the dream is ready to do away with him, be he
father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, etc. We have wondered
sufficiently over this evil tendency of human nature, and cer-
tainly were not predisposed to accept the authenticity of this
result of dream interpretation without question. After it has
once been suggested to us to seek the origir of such wishes in
the past, we disclose immediately the period of the individual
past in which such egoism and such wish-impulses, even as
directed against those closest to the dreamer, are no longer
strangers. It is just in these first years of childhood which later
are hidden by amnesia, that this egoism frequently shows itself
in most extreme form, and from which regular but clear ten-
dencies thereto, or real remnants thereof, show themselves. For
the child loves itself first, and later learns to love others, to
sacrifice something of its ego for another. Even those persons
whom the child seems to love from the very beginning, it loves
at the outset because it has need of them, cannot do without them,
in others words, out of egoistical motives. Not until later does
the love impulse become independent of egoism. In brief, egoism
has taught the child to love.

In this connection it is instructive to compare the child's re-
gard for his brothers and sisters with that which he has for his
parents. The little child does not necessarily love his brothers
and sisters, often, obviously, he does not love them at all. There
is no doubt that in them he hates his rivals and it is known how
frequently this attitude continues for many years until maturity,
and even beyond, without interruption. Often enough this atti-
tude is superseded by a more tender feeling, or rather let us
say, glossed over, but the hostile feeling appears regularly to

172 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

have been the earlier. It is most noticeable in children of from
two and one-half to four or five years of age, when a new little
brother or sister arrives. The latter is usually received in a
far from friendly manner. Expressions such as "I don't want
him! Let the stork take him away again," are very usual.
Subsequently every opportunity is made use of to disparage the
new arrival, and even attempts to do him bodily harm, direct
attacks, are not unheard of. If the difference in age is less, the
child learns of the existence of the rival with intense psychic
activity, and accommodates himself to the new situation. If the
difference in age is greater, the new child may awaken certain
sympathies as an interesting object, as a sort of living doll, and
if the difference is eight years or more, motherly impulses,
especially in the case of girls, may come into play. But to be
truthful, when we disclose in a dream the wish for the death
of a mother or sister we need seldom find it puzzling and may
trace its origin easily to early childhood, often enough, also,
to the propinquity of later years.

Probably no nurseries are free from mighty conflicts among
the inhabitants. The motives are rivalry for the love of the
parents, articles owned in common, the room itself. The hostile
impulses are called forth by older as well as younger brothers
and sisters. I believe it was Bernard Shaw who said : "If there
is anyone who hates a young English lady more than does her
mother, it is her elder sister." There is something about this
saying, however, that arouses our antipathy. "We can, at a
pinch, understand hatred of brothers and sisters, and rivalry
among them, but how may feelings of hatred force their way
into the relationship between daughter and mother, parents and
children ?

This relationship is without doubt the more favorable, even
when looked at from the viewpoint of the child. This is in
accord with our expectation ; we find it much more offensive for
love between parents and children to be lacking than for love
between brothers and sisters. We have, so to speak, made some-
thing holy in the first instance which in the other case we per-
mitted to remain profane. But daily observation can show us
how frequently the feelings between parents and their grown
children fail to come up to the ideal established by society, how
much enmity exists and would find expression did not accumula-

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism 173

tions of piety and of tender impulse hold them back. The mo-
tives for this are everywhere known and disclose a tendency
to separate those of the same sex, daughter from mother, father
from son. The daughter finds in her mother the authority that
hems in her will and that is entrusted with the task of causing
her to carry out the abstention from sexual liberty which society
demands; in certain cases also she is the rival who objects to
being displaced. The same type of thing occurs in a more
glaring manner between father and son. To the son the father
is the embodiment of every social restriction, borne with such
great opposition; the father bars the way to freedom of will,
to early sexual satisfaction^ and where there is family property
held in common, to the enjoyment thereof. Impatient waiting
for the death of the father grows to heights approximating
tragedy in the case of a successor to the throne. Less strained
is the relationship between father and daughter, mother and
son. The latter affords the purest examples of an unalterable
tenderness, in no way disturbed by egoistical considerations.

Why do I speak of these things, so banal and so well known ?
Because there is an unmistakable disposition to deny their sig-
nificance in life, and to set forth the ideal demanded by society
as a fulfilled thing much oftener than it really is fulfilled. But
it is preferable for psychology to speak the truth, rather than
that this task should be left to the cynic. In any event, this
denial refers only to actual life. The arts of narrative and
dramatic poetry are still free to make use of the motives that
result from a disturbance of this ideal.

It is not to be wondered at that in the case of a large number
of people the dream discloses the wish for the removal of the
parents, especially the parent of the same sex. "We may conclude
that it is also present during waking hours, and that it becomes
conscious even at times when it is able to mask itself behind
another motive, as in the case of the dreamer's sympathy for
his father's unnecessary sufferings in example 3. It is seldom
that the enmity alone controls the relationship ; much more often
it recedes behind more tender impulses, by which it is suppressed,
and must wait until a dream isolates it. That which the dream
shows us in enlarged form as a result of such isolation, shrinks
together again after it has been properly docketed in its relation
to life as a result of our interpretation (H. Sachs). But we

174 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

also find this dream wish in places where it has no connection
with life, and where the adult, in his waking hours, would
never recognize it. The reason for this is that the deepest and
most uniform motive for becoming unfriendly, especially between
persons of the same sex, has already made its influence felt in
earliest childhood.

I mean the love rivalry, with the especial emphasis of the sex
character. The son, even as a small child, begins to develop an
especial tenderness for his mother, whom he considers as his
own property, and feels his father to be a rival who puts into
question his individual possession; and in the same manner the
little daughter sees in her mother a person who is a disturbing
element in her tender relationship with her father, and who
occupies a position that she could very well fill herself. One
learns from these observations to what early years these ideas
extend back — ideas which we designate as the Oedipus-complex,
because this myth realizes with a very slightly weakened effect
the two extreme wishes which grow out of the situation of the
son — to kill his father and take his mother to wife. I do not
wish to maintain that the Oedipus-complex covers entirely the
relation of the child to its parents; this relation can be much
more complicated. Furthermore, the Oedipus-complex is more
or less well-developed; it may even experience a reversal, but
it is a customary and very important factor in the psychic life
of the child; and one tends rather to underestimate than to
overestimate its influence and the developments which may fol-
low from it. In addition, children frequently react to the
Oedipus-idea through stimulation by the parents, who in the
placing of their affection are often led by sex-differences, so that
the father prefers the daughter, the mother the son; or again,
where the marital affection has cooled, and this love is substituted
for the outworn love.

One cannot maintain that the world was very grateful to
psychoanalytic research for its discovery of the Oedipus-complex.
On the contrary, it called forth the strongest resistance on the
part of adults; and persons who had neglected to take part in
denying this proscribed or tabooed feeling-relationship later
made good the omission by taking all value from the complex
through false interpretations. According to my unchanged con-
viction there is nothing to deny and nothing to make more

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism 175

palatable. One should accept the fact, recognized by the Greek
myth itself, as inevitable destiny. On the other hand, it is
interesting that this Oedipus-complex, cast out of life, was
yielded up to poetry and given the freest play. 0. Rank has
shown in a careful study how this very Oedipus-complex has
supplied dramatic literature with a large number of motives in
unending variations, derivations and disguises, also in distorted
forms such as we recognize to be the work of a censor. We may
also ascribe this Oedipus-complex to those dreamers who were
so fortunate as to escape in later life these conflicts with their
parents, and intimately associated therewith we find what we
call the castration complex, the reaction to sexual intimidation
or restriction, ascribed to the father, of early infantile sexuality.
By applying our former researches to the study of the psychic
life of the child, we may expect to find that the origin of other
forbidden dream-wishes, of excessive sexual impulses, may be
explained in the same manner. Thus we are moved to study
the development of sex-life in the child also, and we discover the
following from a number of sources : In the first place, it is a
mistake to deny that the child has a sexual life, and to take it
for granted that sexuality commences with the ripening of the
genitals at the time of puberty. On the contrary — the child has
from the very beginning a sexual life rich in content and differ-
ing in numerous respects from that which is later considered
normal. What we call "perverse" in the life of the adult, differs
from the normal in the following respects: first, in disregard
for the dividing line of species (the gulf between man and ani-
mal) ; second, being insensible to the conventional feeling of
disgust ; third, the incest-limitation (being prohibited from seek-
ing sexual satisfaction with near blood-relations) ; fourth, homo-
sexuality, and fifth, transferring the role of the genitals to other
organs and other parts of the body. None of these limitations
exist in the beginning, but are gradually built up in the course
of development and education. The little child is free from
them. He knows no unbridgable chasm between man and ani-
mal ; the arrogance with which man distinguishes himself from
the animal is a later acquisition. In the beginning he is not
disgusted at the sight of excrement, but slowly learns to be so
disgusted under the pressure of education; he lays no special
Btress on the difference between the sexes, rather accredits to

176 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

both the same genital formation; he directs his earliest sexual
desires and his curiosity toward those persons closest to him,
and who are dear to him for various reasons — his parents,
brothers and sisters, nurses; and finally, you may observe in
him that which later breaks through again, raised now to a love
attraction, viz., that he does not expect pleasure from his sexual
organs alone, but that many other parts of the body portray the
same sensitiveness, are the media of analogous sensations, and
are able to play the role of the genitals. The child may, then,
be called "polymorphus perverse," and if he makes but slight
use of all these impulses, it is, on the one hand, because of their
lesser intensity as compared to later life, and on the other hand,
because the bringing up of the child immediately and ener-
getically suppresses all his sexual expressions. This suppression
continues in theory, so to say, since the grown-ups are careful
to control part of the childish sex-expressions, and to disguise
another part by misrepresenting its sexual nature until they can
deny the whole business. These are often the same persons who
discourse violently against all the sexual faults of the child and
then at the writing table defend the sexual purity of the same
children. Where children are left to themselves or are under
the influence of corruption, they often are capable of really con-
spicuous performances of perverse sexual activity. To be sure,
the grown-ups are right in looking upon these things as ' ' childish
performances," as "play," for the child is not to be judged as
mature and answerable either before the bar of custom or before
the law, but these things do exist, they have their significance
as indications of innate characteristics as well as causes and
furtherances of later developments, they give us an insight into
childhood sex-life and thereby into the sex life of man. When
we rediscover in the background of our distorted dreams all
these perverse wish-impulses, it means only that the dream has
in this field traveled back to the infantile condition.

Especially noteworthy among these forbidden wishes are those
of incest, i.e., those directed towards sexual intercourse with
parents and brothers and sisters. You know what antipathy
society feels toward such intercourse, or at least pretends to feel,
and what weight is laid on the prohibitions directed against it.
The most monstrous efforts have been made to explain this fear
of incest. Some have believed that it is due to evolutionary fore-

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism 177

sight on the part of nature, which is psychically represented by
this prohibition, because inbreeding would deteriorate the race-
character; others maintained that because of having lived to-
gether since early childhood the sexual desire is diverted from
the persons under consideration. In both cases, furthermore,
the incest-avoidance would be automatically assured, and it
would be difficult to understand the need of strict prohibitions,
which rather point to the presence of a strong desire. Psycho-
analytic research has incontrovertibly shown that the incestuous
love choice is rather the first and most customary choice, and
that not until later is there any resistance, the source of which
probably is to be found in the individual psychology.

Let us sum up what our plunge into child psychology has
given us toward the understanding of the dream. "We found
not only that the materials of forgotten childhood experiences
are accessible to the dream, but we saw also that the psychic life
of children, with all its peculiarities, its egoism, its incestuous
love-choice, etc., continues, for the purposes of the dream, in
the unconscious, and that the dream nightly leads us back to
Jhis infantile stage. Thus it becomes more certain that the un-
conscious in our psychic life is the infantile. The estranging
impression that there is so much evil in man, begins to weaken.
This frightful evil is simply the original, primitive, infantile
side of psychic life, which we may find in action in children, which
we overlook partly because of the slightness of its dimensions,
partly because it is lightly considered, since we demand no
ethical heights of the child. Since the dream regresses to this
stage, it seems to have made apparent the evil that lies in us
But it is only a deceptive appearance by which we have allowed
ourselves to be frightened. "We are not so evil as we might
suspect from the interpretation of dreams.

If the evil impulses of the dream are merely infantilism, a
return to the beginnings of our ethical development, since the
dream simply makes children of us again in thinking and in
feeling, we need not be ashamed of these evil dreams if we are
reasonable. But being reasonable is only a part of psychic
life. Many things are taking place there that are not reasonable,
and so it happens that we are ashamed of such dreams, and
unreasonably. We turn them over to the dream-censorship, are
ashamed and angry if one of these dreams has in some unusual

178 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

manner succeeded in penetrating into consciousness in an un-
distorted form, so that we must recognize it — in fact, we are at
times just as ashamed of the distorted dream as we would be
if we understood it. Just think of the scandalized opinion of
the fine old lady about her uninterpreted dream of "services
of love." The problem is not yet solved, and it is still possible
that upon further study of the evil in the dream we shall come
to some other decision and arrive at another valuation of human
nature.

As a result of the whole investigation we grasp two facts,
which, however, disclose only the beginnings of new riddles,
new doubts. First: the regression of dream-work is not only
formal, it is also of greater import. It not only translates our
thoughts into a primitive form of expression, but it reawakens
the peculiarities of our primitive psychic life, the ancient pre-
dominance of the ego, the earliest impulses of our sexual life,
even our old intellectual property, if we may consider the sym-
bolic relations as such. And second : We must accredit all these
infantilisms which once were governing, and solely governing,
to the unconscious, about which our ideas now change and are
broadened. Unconscious is no longer a name for what is at
that time latent, the unconscious is an especial psychic realm
with wish-impulses of its own, with its own method of expres-
sion and with a psychic mechanism peculiar to itself, all of
which ordinarily are not in force. But the latent dream-
thoughts, which we have solved by means of the dream-interpre-
tation, are not of this realm. They are much more nearly the
same as any we may have thought in our waking hours. Still
they are unconscious; how does one solve this contradiction?
We begin to see that a distinction must be made. Something
that originates in our conscious life, and that shares its charac-
teristics— we call it the day-remnants — combines in the dream-
fabrication with something else out of the realm of the un-
conscious. Between these two parts the dream-work completes
itself. The influencing of the day-remnants by the unconscious
necessitates regression. This is the deepest insight into the
nature of the dream that we are able to attain without having
searched through further psychic realms. The time will soon
come, however, when we shall clothe the unconscious character of
the latent dream-thought with another name, which shall differ-

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism 179

entiate it from the unconscious out of the realm of the infantile.
We may, to be sure, propound the question : what forces the
psychological activity during sleep to such regression? Why
do not the sleep disturbing psychic stimuli do the job without it ?
And if they must, because of the dream censorship, disguise
themselves through old forms of expression which are no longer
comprehensible, what is the use of giving new life to old, long-
outgrown psychic stimuli, wishes and character types, that is,
why the material regression in addition to the formal ? The only
satisfactory answer would be this, that only in this manner can
a dream be built up, that dynamically the dream-stimulus can
be satisfied only in this way. But for the time being we have no
right to give such an answer.

FOURTEENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Wish Fulfillment

MAY I bring to your attention once more the ground
we have already covered? How, when we met with
dream distortion in the application of our technique,
we decided to leave it alone for the time being, and
set out to obtain decisive information about the nature of the
dream by way of infantile dreams ? How, then, armed with the
results of this investigation, we attacked dream distortion di-
rectly and, I trust, in some measure overcame it ? But we must
remind ourselves that the results we found along the one way
and along the other do not fit together as well as might be. It
is now our task to put these two results together and balance
them against one another.

From both sources we have seen that the dream-work consists
essentially in the transposition of thoughts into an hallucinatory
experience. How that can take place is puzzling enough, but
it is a problem of general psychology with which we shall not
busy ourselves here. We have learned from the dreams of chil-
dren that the purpose of the dream work is the satisfaction of
one of the sleep-disturbing psychic stimuli by means of a wish
fulfillment. "We were unable to make a similar statement con-
cerning distorted dreams, until we knew how to interpret them.
But from the very beginning we expected to be able to bring
the distorted dreams under the same viewpoint as the infantile.
The earliest fulfillment of this expectation led us to believe that
as a matter of fact all dreams are the dreams of children and that
they all work with infantile materials, through childish psychic
stimuli and mechanics. Since we consider that we have con-
quered dream-distortion, we must continue the investigation to
see whether our hypothesis of wish-fulfillment holds good for
distorted dreams also.

"We very recently subjected a number of dreams to interpret*-

180

Wish Fulfillment 181

tion, but left wish-fulfillment entirely out of consideration. I
am convinced that the question again and again occurred to
you: "What about wish-fulfillment, which ostensibly is the
goal of dream-work?" This question is important. It was, in
fact, the question of our lay-critics. As you know, humanity-
has an instinctive antagonism toward intellectual novelties. The
expression of such a novelty should immediately be reduced to its
narrowest limits, if possible, comprised in a commonplace phrase.
Wish-fulfillment has become that phrase for the new dream-
science. The layman asks: "Where is the wish-fulfillment?"
Immediately, upon having heard that the dream is supposed to
be a wish-fulfillment, and indeed, by the very asking of the ques-
tion, he answers it with a denial. He is at once reminded of
countless dream-experiences of his own, where his aversion to the
dream was enormous, so that the proposition of psychoanalytic
dream-science seems very improbable to him. It is a simple
matter to answer the layman that wish-fulfillment cannot be
apparent in distorted dreams, but must be sought out, so that
it is not recognized until the dream is interpreted. We know,
too, that the wishes in these distorted dreams are prohibited
wishes, are wishes rejected by the censor and that their existence
is the very cause of the dream distortion and the reason for the
intrusion of the dream censor. But it is hard to convince the
lay-critic that one may not seek the wish-fulfillment in the dream
before the dream has been interpreted. This is continually for-
gotten. His sceptical attitude toward the theory of wish-ful-
fillment is really nothing more than a consequence of dream-
censorship, a substitute and a result of the denial of this censored
dream-wish.

To be sure, even we shall find it necessary to explain to our-
selves why there are so many dreams of painful content, and
especially dreams of fear. We see here, for the first time, the
problem of the affects in the dream, a problem worthy of separate
investigation, but which unfortunately cannot be considered
here. If the dream is a wish-fulfillment, painful experiences
ought to be impossible in the dream; in that the lay-critics ap-
parently are right. But three complications, not thought of by
them, must be taken into consideration.

First : It may be that the dream work has not been successful
in creating a wish-fulfillment, so that a part of the painful

182 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

effect of the dream-thought is left over for the manifest dream.
Analysis should then show that these thoughts were far more
painful even than the dream which was built out of them. This
much may be proved in each instance. "We admit, then, that the
dream work has not achieved its purpose any more than the
drink-dream due to the thirst-stimulus has achieved its purpose
of satisfying the thirst. One remains thirsty, and must wake
up in order to drink. But it was a real dream, it sacrificed
nothing of its nature. We must say: " Although strength be
lacking, let us praise the will to do." The clearly recognizable
intention, at least, remains praiseworthy. Such cases of mis-
carriage are not unusual. A contributory cause is this, that it is
so much more difficult for the dream work to change affect into
content in its own sense ; the affects often show great resistance,
and thus it happens that the dream work has worked the painful
content of the dream-thoughts over into a wish-fulfillment, while
the painful affect continues in its unaltered form. Hence in
dreams of this type the affect does not fit the content at all, and
our critics may say the dream is so little a wish-fulfillment that a
harmless content may be experienced as painful. In answer to
this unintelligible remark we say that the wish-fulfillment ten-
dency in the dream-work appears most prominent, because
isolated, in just such dreams. The error is due to the fact that
he who does not know neurotics imagines the connection between
content and affect as all too intimate, and cannot, therefore,
grasp the fact that a content may be altered without any
corresponding change in the accompanying affect-expression.

A second, far more important and more extensive considera-
tion, equally disregarded by the layman, is the following: A
wish-fulfillment certainly must bring pleasure — but to whom?
Naturally, to him who has the wish. But we know from the
dreamer that he stands in a very special relationship to his
wishes. He casts them aside, censors them, he will have none of
them. Their fulfillment gives him no pleasure, but only the
opposite. Experience then shows that this opposite, which must
still be explained, appears in the form of fear. The dreamer
in his relation to his dream-wishes can be compared only to a
combination of two persons bound together by some strong com-
mon quality. Instead of further explanations, I shall give you
& well-known fairy tale, in which you will again find the rela-

Wish Fulfillment 183

tionships I have mentioned. A good fairy promises a poor
couple, husband and wife, to fulfill their first three wishes.
They are overjoyed, and determine to choose their three wishes
with great care. But the woman allows herself to be led astray
by the odor of cooking sausages emanating from the next cottage,
and wishes she had a couple of such sausages. Presto ! they are
there. This is the first wish-fulfillment. Now the husband
becomes angry, and in his bitterness wishes that the sausages
might hang from the end of her nose. This, too, is accomplished,
and the sausages cannot be removed from their new location.
So this is the second wish-fulfillment, but the wish is that of the
husband. The wife is very uncomfortabe because of the ful-
fillment of this wish. You know how the fairy tale continues.
Since both husband and wife are fundamentally one, the third
wish must be that the sausages be removed from the nose of the
wife. "We could make use of this fairy tale any number of times
in various connections; here it serves only as an illustration
of the possibility that the wish-fulfillment for the one personality
may lead to an aversion on the part of the other, if the two do
not agree with one another.

It will not be difficult now to come to a better understanding
of the anxiety-dream. We shall make one more observation,
then we shall come to a conclusion to which many things lead.
The observation is that the anxiety dreams often have a content
which is entirely free from distortion and in which the censor-
ship is, so to speak, eluded. The anxiety dream is ofttimes an
undisguised wish-fulfillment, not, to be sure, of an accepted, but
of a discarded wish. The anxiety development has stepped into
the place of the censorship. While one may assert of the in-
fantile dream that it is the obvious fulfillment of a wish that
has gained admittance, and of the distorted dream that it is the
disguised fulfillment of a suppressed wish, he must say of the
anxiety dream that the only suitable formula is this, that it
is the obvious fulfillment of a suppressed wish. Anxiety is the
mark which shows that the suppressed wish showed itself
Stronger than the censorship, that it put through its wish-fulfill-
ment despite the censorship, or was about to put it through.
We understand that what is wish-fulfillment for the suppressed
wish is for us, who are on the side of the dream-censor, only a

184 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

painful sensation and a cause for antagonism. The anxiety
which occurs in dreams is, if you wish, anxiety because of the
strength of these otherwise suppressed wishes. Why this an-
tagonism arises in the form of anxiety cannot be discovered from
a study of the dream alone; one must obviously study anxiety
from other sources.

What holds true for the undistorted anxiety dream we may
assume to be true also of those dreams which have undergone
partial distortion, and of the other dreams of aversion whose
painful impressions very probably denote approximations of
anxiety. The anxiety dream is usually also a dream that causes
waking; we habitually interrupt sleep before the suppressed
wish of the dream has accomplished its entire fulfillment in
opposition to the censorship. In this case the execution of the
dream is unsuccessful, but this does not change its nature.
We have likened the dream to the night watchman or sleep-
defender who wishes to protect our sleep from being disturbed.
The night watchman, too, sometimes wakes the sleeper when he
feels himself too weak to drive away the disturbance or danger
all by himself. Yet we are often able to remain asleep, even
when the dream begins to become suspicious, and begins to as-
sume the form of anxiety. We say to ourselves in our sleep:
' ' It 's only a dream, ' ' and we sleep on.

When does it happen that the dream-wish is in a position to
overpower this censorship ? The conditions for this may be just
as easily furnished by the dream-wish as by the dream-censor-
ship. The wish may, for unknown reasons, become irresistible ;
but one gets the impression that more frequently the attitude of
the dream censorship is to blame for this disarrangement in the
relations of the forces. We have already heard that the censor-
ship works with varying intensity in each single instance, that
it handles each element with a different degree of strictness;
now we should like to add the proposition that it is an extremely
variable thing and does not exert equal force on every occasion
against the same objectionable element. If on occasion the
censorship feels itself powerless with respect to a dream-wish
which threatens to over-ride it, then, instead of distortion, it
makes use of the final means at its disposal, it destroys the sleep
condition by the development of anxiety.

And now it occurs to us that we know absolutely nothing yet

Wish Fulfillment 185

as to why these evil, depraved wishes are aroused just at night,
in order that they may disturb our sleep. The answer can only
be an assumption which is based on the nature of the condition
of sleep. During the day the heavy pressure of a censorship
weighs upon these wishes, making it impossible, as a rule, for
them to express themselves in any manner. At night, evidently,
this censorship is withdrawn for the benefit of the single sleep-
wish, in the same manner as are all the other interests of psychic
life, or at least placed in a position of very minor importance.
The forbidden wishes must thank this noctural deposition of
the censor for being able to raise their heads again. There are
nervous persons troubled with insomnia who admit that their
sleeplessness was in the beginning voluntary. They did not
trust themselves to fall asleep, because they were afraid of
their dreams, that is, of the results due to a slackening of the
censorship. So you can readily see that this withdrawal of the
censor does not in itself signify rank carelessness. Sleep weakens
our power to move; our evil intentions, even if they do begin
to stir, can accomplish nothing but a dream, which for practical
purposes is harmless, and the highly sensible remark of the
sleepers, a night-time remark indeed, but not a part of the dream
life, "it is only a dream," is reminiscent of this quieting cir-
cumstance. So let us grant this, and sleep on.

If, thirdly, you recall the concept that the dreamer, struggling
against his wishes, is to be compared to a summation of two
separate persons, in some manner closely connected, you will be
able to grasp the further possibility of how a thing which is
highly unpleasant, namely, punishment, may be accomplished
by wish-fulfillment. Here again the fairy tale of the three
wishes can be of service to us: the sausages on the plate are
the direct wish-fulfillment of the first person, the woman; the
sausages at the end of her nose are the wish-fulfillment of the
second person, the husband, but at the same time the punishment
for the stupid wish of the woman. Among the neurotics we find
again the motivation of the third wish, which remains in fairy
tales only. There are many such punishment-tendencies in the
psychic life of man ; they are very powerful, and we may make
them responsible for some of our painful dreams. Perhaps you
now say that at this rate, not very much of the famed wish-
fulfillment is left. But upon closer view you will admit that

186 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

you are wrong. In contrast to the manysided aspects, later
to be discussed, of what the dream might be — and, according
to numerous authors, is — the solution (wish-fulfillment, anxiety-
fulfillment, punishment-fulfillment) is indeed very restricted.
That is why anxiety is the direct antithesis of the wish, why
antitheses are so closely allied in association and why they occur
together in the unconscious, as we have heard ; and that is why
punishment, too, is a wish-fulfillment of the other, the censoring
person.

On the whole, then, I have made no concessions to your protes-
tation against the theory of wish-fulfillment. "We are bound,
however, to establish wish-fulfillment in every dream no matter
how distorted, and we certainly do not wish to withdraw from
this task. Let us go back to the dream, already interpreted,
of the three bad theatre tickets for 1 Fl. 50 Kr. from
which we have already learned so much. I hope you
still remember it. A lady wno tells her husband during the
day that her friend Elise, only three months younger than
herself, has become engaged, dreams she is in the theatre with
her husband. Half the parquet is empty. Her husband says,
" Elise and her fiance wanted to go to the theatre, too, but
couldn't because they could get only poor seats, three for one
gulden and a half." She was of the opinion that that wasn't so
unfortunate. We discovered that the dream-thought originated
in her discontent at having married too soon, and the fact that
she was dissatisfied with her husband. We may be curious as
to the manner in which these thoughts have been worked over
into a wish-fulfillment, and where their traces may be found
in the manifest content. Now we know that the element "too
soon, premature" is eliminated from the dream by the censor.
The empty parquet is a reference to it. The puzzling "three
for 1 Fl. 50 Kr." is now, with the help of symbolism
which we have since learned, more understandable.1 The "3"
really means a husband, and the manifest element is easy to
translate: to buy a husband for her dowry ("I could have
bought one ten times better for my dowry"). The marriage
is obviously replaced by going into the theatre. "Buying the
tickets too soon" directly takes the place of the premature mar-

1 1 do not mention another obvious interpretation of this " 3 " in the
case of this childless woman, because it is not material to this analysis.

Wish Fulfillment 187

riage. This substitution is the work of the wish-fulfillment.
Our dreamer was not always so dissatisfied with her early mar-
riage as she was on the day she received news of the engagement
of her friend. At the time she was proud of her marriage
and felt herself more favored than her friend. Naive girls
have frequently confided to their friends after their engagement
that soon they, too, will be able to go to all the plays hitherto
forbidden, and se« everything. The desire to see plays, the
curiosity that makes its appearance here, was certainly in the
beginning directed towards sex matters, the sex-life, especially
the sex-life of the parents, and then became a strong motive
which impelled the girl to an early marriage. In this way the
visit to the theatre becomes an obvious representative substitute
for being married. In the momentary annoyance at her early
marriage she recalls the time when the early marriage was a
wish-fulfillment for her, because she had satisfied her curiosity ;
and she now replaces the marriage, guided by the old wish-
impulse, with the going to the theatre.

"We may say that we have not sought out the simplest example
as proof of a hidden wish-fulfillment. "We would have to pro-
ceed in analogous manner with other distorted dreams. I cannot
do that for you, and simply wish to express the conviction that
it will be successful everywhere. But I wish to continue along
this theoretical line. Experience has taught me that it is one
of the most dangerous phases of the entire dream science, and
that many contradictions and misunderstandings are connected
therewith. Besides, you are perhaps still under the impression
that I have retracted a part of my declaration, in that I said
that the dream is a fulfilled wish or its opposite, an actualized
anxiety or punishment, and you will think this is the oppor-
tunity to compel further reservations of me. 1 have also heard
complaints that I am too abrupt about things which appear
evident to me, and that for that reason I do not present the
thing convincingly enough.

If a person has gone thus far with us in dream-interpretation,
and accepted everything that has been offered, it is not unusual
for him to call a halt at wish-fulfillment, and say, "Granted that
in every instance the dream has a meaning, and that this mean-
ing can be disclosed by psychoanalytic technique, why must this
dream, despite all evidence to the contrary, always be forced

188 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

into the formula of wish-fulfillment? Why might not the
meaning of this nocturnal thought be as many-sided as thought is
by day; why may not the dream in one case express a fulfilled
wish, in another, as you yourself say, the opposite thereof, an
actualized anxiety ; or why may it not correspond to a resolution,
a warning, a reflection with its pro's and con's, a reproach, a
goad to conscience, an attempt to prepare oneself for a con-
templated performance, etc? Why always nothing more than
a wish, or at best, its opposite?"

One might maintain that a difference of opinion on these
points is of no great importance, so long as we are at one other-
wise. We might say that it is enough to have discovered the
meaning of the dream, and the way to recognize it ; that it is a
matter of no importance, if we have too narrowly limited this
meaning. But this is not so. A misunderstanding of this point
strikes at the nature of our knowledge of the dream, and en-
dangers its worth for the understanding of neuroses. Then, too,
that method of approach which is esteemed in the business world
as genteel is out of place in. scientific endeavors, and harmful.

My first answer to the question why the dream may not be
many-sided in its meaning is the usual one in such instances:
I do not know why it should not be so. I would not be opposed
to such a state of affairs. As far as I am concerned, it could
well be true. Only one small matter prevents this broader and
more comfortable explanation of the dream — namely, that as a
matter of fact it isn't so. My second answer emphasizes the
fact that the assumption that the dream corresponds to numer-
ous forms of thought and intellectual operations is no stranger
to me. In a story about a sick person I once reported a dream
that occurred three nights running and then stopped, and I
explained this suppression by saying that the dream cor-
responded to a resolution which had no reason to recur after
having been carried out. More recently I published a dream
which corresponded to a confession. How is it possible for me
to contradict myself, and maintain that the dream is always
only a fulfilled wish ?

I do that, because I do not wish to admit a stupid misunder-
standing which might cost us the fruits of all our labors with
regard to the dream, a misunderstanding which confuses the
dream with the latent dream-thought and affirms of the dream

Wish Fulfillment 189

something that applies specifically and solely to the latter. For
it is entirely correct that the dream can represent, and be re-
placed by all those things we enumerated : a resolution, a warn-
ing, reflection, preparation, an attempt to solve a problem, etc.
But if you look closely, you will recognize that all these things
are true only of the latent dream thoughts, which have been
changed about in the dream. You learn from the interpretation
of the dreams that the person's unconscious thinking is occupied
with such resolutions, preparations, reflections, etc., out of
which the dream-work then builds the dream. If you are not at
the time interested in the dream-work, but are very much in-
terested in the unconscious thought-work of man, you eliminate
the dream-work, and say of the dream, for all practical purposes
quite correctly, that it corresponds to a warning, a resolution,
etc. This often happens in psychoanalytic activity. People en-
deavor for the most part only to destroy the dream form, and
to substitute in its place in the sequence the latent thoughts out
of which the dream was made.

Thus we learn, from the appreciation of the latent dream-
thoughts, that all the highly complicated psychic acts we have
enumerated can go on unconsciously, a result as wonderful as
it is confusing.

But to return, you are right only if you admit that you have
made use of an abbreviated form of speech, and if you do not
believe that you must connect the many-sidedness we have men-
tioned with the essence of the dream. When you speak of the
dream you must mean either the manifest dream, i.e., the
product of the dream-work, or at most the dream-work itself —
that psychic occurrence which forms the manifest dream out of
the latent dream thought. Any other use of the word is a
confusion of concept that can only cause trouble. If your as-
sertions refer to the latent thoughts back of the dream, say so,
and do not cloud the problem of the dream by using such a
faulty means of expression. The latent dream thoughts are
the material which the dream-work remolds into the manifest
dream. Why do you insist upon confusing the material with
the work that makes use of it ? Are you any better off than those
who knew only the product of this work, and could explain
neither where it came from nor how it was produced ?

The only essential thing in the dream is the dream-work that

190 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

has had its influence upon the thought-material. We have no
right to disregard it theoretically even if, in certain practical
situations, we may fail to take it into account. Analytic obser-
vation, too, shows that the dream-work never limits itself to
translating these thoughts in the archiac or regressive mode of
expression known to you. Bather it regularly adds something
which does not belong to the latent thoughts of waking, but
which is the essential motive of dream-formation. This indis-
pensable ingredient is at the same time the unconscious wish, for
the fulfillment of which the dream content is rebuilt. The
dream may be any conceivable thing, if you take into account
only the thoughts represented by it, warning, resolution, prepa-
ration, etc.; it is also always the fulfillment of an unknown
wish, and it is this only if you look upon it as the result of the
dream-work. A dream is never itself a resolution, a warning,
and no more — but always a resolution, etc., translated into an
archaic form of expression with the help of the unconscious
wish, and changed about for the purpose of fulfilling this wish.
The one characteristic, wish-fulfillment, is constant; the other
may vary; it may itself be a wish at times, so that the dream,
with the aid of an unconscious wish, presents as fulfilled a latent
wish out of waking hours.

I understand all this very well, but I do not know whether
or not I shall be successful in making you understand it as
well. I have difficulties, too, in proving it to you. This cannot
be done without, on the one hand, careful analysis of many
dreams, and on the other hand this most difficult and most
important point of our conception of the dream cannot be set
forth convincingly without reference lo things to follow. Can
you, in fact, believe that taking into consideration the intimate
relationship of all things, one is able to penetrate deeply into
the nature of one thing without having carefully considered
other things of a very similar nature ? Since we know nothing
as yet about the closest relatives of the dream, neurotic symp-
toms, we must once again content ourselves with what has al-
ready been accomplished. I want to explain one more example
to you, and propose a new viewpoint.

Let us again take up that dream to which we have several
times recurred, the dream of the three theatre tickets for 1
PL 50 Kr. I can assure you that I took this example

Wish Fulfillment 191

quite unpremeditatedly at first. You are acquainted with the
latent dream thoughts : annoyance, upon hearing that her friend
had just now become engaged, at the thought that she herself
had hurried so to be married; contempt for her husband; the
idea that she might have had a better one had she waited. We
also know the wish, which made a dream out of these thoughts —
it is "curiosity to see," being permitted to go to the theatre,
very likely a derivation from the old curiosity finally to know
just what happens when one is married. This curiosity, as is
well known, regularly directs itself in the case of children to
the sex-life of the parents. It is an impulse of childhood, and
in so far as it persists later, an impulse whose roots reach back
into the infantile. But that day's news played no part in awak-
ing the curiosity, it awoke only annoyance and regret. This
wish impulse did not have anything to do immediately with the
latent dream thoughts, and we could fit the result of the dream
interpretation into the analysis without considering the wish
impulse at all. But then, the annoyance itself was not capable
of producing the dream ; a dream could not be derived from the
thought: "It was stupid to marry so soon," except by reviving
the old wish finally to see what happens when one is married.
The wish then formed the dream content, in that it replaced
marriage by going to the theatre, and gave it the form of an
earlier wish-fulfillment: "so now I may go to the theatre and
see all the forbidden things, and you may not. I am married
and you must wait." In such a manner the present situation
was transposed into its opposite, an old triumph put into the
place of the recent defeat. Added thereto was a satisfied
curiosity amalgamated with a satisfied egoistic sense of rivalry.
This satisfaction determines the manifest dream content in
which she really is sitting in the theatre, and her friend was
unable to get tickets. Those bits of dream content are affixed
to this satisfaction situation as unfitting and inexplicable modi-
fications, behind which the latent dream thoughts still hide.
Dream interpretation must take into consideration everything
that serves toward the representation of the wish-fulfillment and
must reconstruct from these suggestions the painful latent
dream-thought.

The observation I now wish to make is for the purpose of
drawing your attention to the latent, dream thoughts, now

192 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

pushed to the fore. I beg of you not to forget first, that the
dreamer is unconscious of them, second, they are entirely logical
and continuous, so that they may be understood as a comprehen-
sible reaction to the dream occasion, third, that they may have
the value of any desired psychic impulse or intellectual opera-
tion. I shall now designate these thoughts more forcibly than
before as "day-remnants"; the dreamer may acknowledge them
or not. I now separate day-remnants and latent dream thoughts
in accordance with our previous usage of calling everything that
we discover in interpreting the dream "latent dream
thoughts," while the day-remnants are only a part of the latent
dream thoughts. Then our conception goes to show that some-
thing additional has been added to the day-remnants, something
which also belonged to the unconscious, a strong but suppressed
wish impulse, and it is this alone that has made possible the
dream fabrication. The influence of this wish impulse on the
day-remnants creates the further participation of the latent
dream thoughts, thoughts which no longer appear rational and
understandable in relation to waking life.

In explaining the relationship of the day-remnants to th&
unconscious wish I have made use of a comparison which I can
only repeat here. Every undertaking requires a capitalist, who
defrays the expenses, and an entrepreneur, who has the idea
and understands how to carry it out. The role of the capitalist
in the dream fabrication is always played by the unconscious
wish; it dispenses the psychic energy for dream-building. The
actual worker is the day-remnant, which determines how the
expenditure is to be made. Now the capitalist may himself have
the idea and the particularized knowledge, or the entrepreneur
may have the capital. This simplifies the practical situation,
but makes its theoretical comprehension more difficult. In
economics we always distinguish between the capitalist and the
entrepeneur aspect in a single person, and thus we reconstruct
the fundamental situation which was the point of departure
for our comparison. In dream-fabrication the same variations
occur. I shall leave their further development to you.

We can go no further here, for you have probably long been
disturbed by a reflection which deserves to be heard. Are the
day-remnants, you ask, really unconscious in the same sense as
the unconscious wish which is essential to making them suitable

Wish Fulfillment 193

for the dream? You discern correctly. Here lies the salient
point of the whole affair. They are not unconscious in the same
sense. The dream wish belongs to a different unconsciousnessj
that which we have recognized as of infantile origin, fitted
out with special mechanisms. It is entirely appropriate to
separate these two types of unconsciousness and give them dif-
ferent designations. But let us rather wait until we have be-
come acquainted with the field of neurotic symptoms. If people
say one unconsciousness is fantastic, what will they say when
we acknowledge that we arrived at our conclusions by using
two kinds of unconsciousness ?

Let us stop here. Once more you have heard something
incomplete ; but is there not hope in the thought that this science
has a continuation which will be brought to light either by our-
selves or by those to follow? And have not we ourselves dis-
covered a sufficient number of new and surprising things ?

FIFTEENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Doubtful Points and Criticism

LET us not leave the subject of dreams before we have
touched upon the most common doubts and uncertain-
ties which have arisen in connection with the new ideas
and conceptions we have discussed up to this point.
The more attentive members of the audience probably have
already accumulated some material bearing upon this.

1. You may have received the impression that the results of
our work of interpretation of the dream have left so much that
is uncertain, despite our close adherence to technique, that a
true translation of the manifest dream into the latent dream
thoughts is thereby rendered impossible. In support of this
you will point out that in the first place, one never knows
whether a specific element of the dream is to be taken literally
or symbolically, since those elements which are used symbolically
do not, because of that fact, cease to be themselves. But if one
has no objective standard by which to decide this, the interpre-
tation is, as to this point, left to the discretion of the dream
interpreter. Moreover, because of the way in which the dream
work combines opposites, it is always uncertain whether a specific
dream element is to be taken in the positive or the negative
sense, whether it is to be understood as itself or as its opposite.
Hence this is another opportunity for the exercise of the inter-
preter's discretion. In the third place, in consequence of the
frequency with which every sort of inversion is practised in the
dream, the dream interpreter is at liberty to assume such an
inversion at any point of the dream he pleases. And finally
you will say, you have heard that one is seldom sure that the
interpretation which is found is the only possible one. There
ia danger of overlooking a thoroughly admissible second inter-

194

Doubtful Points and Criticism 195

pretation of the same dream. Under these circumstances, you
will conclude there is a scope left for the discretion of the
interpreter, the breadth of which seems incompatible with the
objective accuracy of the results. Or you may also conclude that
the fault does not rest with the dream but that the inadequacies
of our dream interpretation result from errors in our conceptions
and hypotheses.

All your material is irreproachable, but I do not believe that
it justifies your conclusions in two directions, namely, that
dream interpretation as we practice it is sacrificed to arbitrari-
ness and that the deficiency of our results makes the justification
of our method doubtful. If you will substitute for the arbitrari-
ness of the interpreter, his skill, his experience, his comprehen-
sion, I agree with you. We shall surely not be able to dispense
with some such personal factor, particularly not in difficult tasks
of dream interpretation. But this same state of affairs exists
also in other scientific occupations. There is no way in which
to make sure that one man will not wield a technique less well,
or utilize it more fully, than another. What might, for example,
impress you as arbitrariness in the interpretation of symbols,
is compensated for by the fact that as a rule the connection of
the dream thoughts among themselves, the connection of the
dream with the life of the dreamer, and the whole psychic
situation in which the dream occurs, chooses just one of the
possible interpretations advanced and rejects the others as use-
less for its purposes. The conclusion drawn from the inade-
quacies of dream interpretation, that our hypotheses are wrong,
is weakened by an observation which shows that the ambiguity
and indefiniteness of the dream is rather characteristic and
necessarily to be expected.

Recollect that we said that the dream work translates the
dream thoughts into primitive expressions analogous to picture
writing. All these primitive systems of expression are, however,
subject to such indefiniteness and ambiguities, but it does not
follow that we are justified in doubting their usefulness. You
know that the fusion of opposites by the dream-work is analogous
to the so-called "antithetical meaning of primitive words," in
the oldest languages. The philologist, B. Abel (1884), whom we
have to thank for this point of view, admonishes us not to
believe that the meaning of the communication which one person

196 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

made to another when using such ambiguous words was neces-
sarily unclear. Tone and gesture used in connection with the
words would have left no room for doubt as to which of the two
opposites the speaker intended to communicate. In writing,
where gesture is lacking, it was replaced by a supplementary
picture sign not intended to be spoken, as for example by the
picture of a little man squatting lazily or standing erect, ac-
cording to whether the ambiguous hieroglyphic was to mean
"weak" or "strong." It was in this way that one avoided
any misunderstanding despite the ambiguity of the sounds and
signs.

"We recognize in the ancient systems of expression, e.g., the
writings of those oldest languages, a number of uncertainties
which we would not tolerate in our present-day writings. Thus
in many Semitic writings only the consonants of words are indi-
cated. The reader had to supply the omitted vowels according
to his knowledge and the context. Hieroglyphic writing does
not proceed in exactly this way, but quite similarly, and that is
why the pronunciation of old Egyptian has remained un-
known to us. The holy writings of the Egyptians contain still
other uncertainties. For example, it is left to the discretion of the
writer whether or not he shall arrange the pictures from right
to left or from left to right. To be able to read we have to
follow the rule that we must depend upon the faces of the
figures, birds, and the like. The writer, however, could also
arrange the picture signs in vertical rows, and in inscriptions
on small objects he was guided by considerations of beauty and
proportion further to change the order of the signs. Probably
the most confusing feature of hieroglyphic writing is to be
found in the fact that there is no space between words. The
pictures stretch over the page at uniform distances from one
another, and generally one does not know whether a sign be-
longs to what has gone before or is the beginning of a new word.
Persian cuneiform writing, on the other hand, makes use of an
oblique wedge sign to separate the words.

The Chinese tongue and script is exceedingly old, but still
used by four hundred million people. Please do not think I
understand anything about it. I have only informed myself
concerning it because I hoped to find analogies to the indefinite
aspects of the dream. Nor was I disappointed. The Chinese

Doubtful Points and Criticism 197

language is filled with so many vagaries that it strikes terror
into our hearts. It consists, as is well known, of a number of
syllable sounds which are spoken singly or are combined in
twos. One of the chief dialects has about four hundred such
sounds. Now since the vocabulary of this dialect is estimated at
about four thousand words, it follows that every sound has on an
average of ten different meanings, some less but others, conse-
quently, more. Hence there are a great number of ways of
avoiding a multiplicity of meaning, since one cannot guess from
the context alone which of the ten meanings of the syllable sound
the speaker intended to convey to the hearer. Among them are
the combining of two sounds into a compounded word and the
use of four different "tones" with which to utter these syllables.
For our purposes of comparison, it is still more interesting to
note that this language has practically no grammar. It is im-
possible to say of a one-syllable word whether it is a noun, a
verb, or an adjective, and we find none of those changes in the
forms of the words by means of which we might recognize sex,
number, ending, tense or mood. The language, therefore, might
be said to consist of raw material, much in the same manner
as our thought language is broken up by the dream work into
its raw materials when the expressions of relationship are left
out. In the Chinese, in all cases of vagueness the decision is
left to the understanding of the hearer, who is guided by the
context. I have secured an example of a Chinese saying which,
literally translated, reads: "Little to be seen, much to wonder
at." That is not difficult to understand. It may mean, "The
less a man has seen, the more he finds to wonder at," or, "There
is much to admire for the man who has seen little. ' ' Naturally,
there is no need to choose between these two translations, which
differ only in grammar. Despite these uncertainties, we are
assured, the Chinese language is an extraordinarily excellent
medium for the expression of thought. Vagueness does not,
therefore, necessarily lead to ambiguity.

Now we must certainly admit that the condition of affairs
is far less favorable in the expression-system of the dream than
in these ancient languages and writings. For, after all, these
latter are really designed for communication, that is to say,
they were always intended to be understood, no matter in what
way and with what aids. But it is just this characteristic which

198 Introduction .to Psychoanalysis

the dream lacks. The dream does not want to tell anyone any-
thing, it is no vehicle of communication, it is, on the contrary,
constructed so as not to be understood. For that reason we
must not be surprised or misled if we should discover that a
number of the ambiguities and vagaries of the dream do not
permit of determination. As the one specific gain of our com-
parison, we have only the realization that such uncertainties as
people tried to make use of in objecting to the validity of our
dream interpretation, are rather the invariable characteristic of
all primitive systems of expression.

How far the dream can really be understood can be deter-
mined only by practice and experience. My opinion is, that
that is very far indeed, and the comparison of results which
correctly trained analysts have gathered confirms my view. The
lay public, even that part of the lay public which is interested
in science, likes, in the face of the difficulties and uncertainties
of a scientific task, to make what I consider an unjust show
of its superior scepticism. Perhaps not all of you are acquainted
with the fact that a similar situation arose in the history of
the deciphering of the Babylonian-Assyrian inscriptions.
There was a period then when public opinion went far in de-
claring the decipherers of cuneiform writing to be visionaries
and the whole research a "fraud." But in the year 1857 the
Royal Asiatic Society made a decisive test. It challenged the
four most distinguished decipherers of cuneiform writing, Eaw-
linson, Hincks, Fox Talbot and Oppert, each to send to it in a
sealed envelope his independent translation of a newly dis-
covered inscription, and the Society was then able to testify,
after having made a comparison of the four readings, that their
agreement was sufficiently marked to justify confidence in what
already had been accomplished, and faith in further progress.
At this the mockery of the learned lay world gradually came
to an end and the confidence in the reading of cuneiform docu-
ments has grown appreciably since then.

2. A second series of objections is firmly grounded in the
impression from which you too probably are not free, that a
number of the solutions of dream interpretations which we find
it necessary to make seem forced, artificial, far-fetched, in other
words, violent or even comical or jocose. These comments are
so frequent that I shall choose at random the latest example

Doubtful Points and Criticism 199

which has come to my attention. Kecently, in free Switzerland,
the director of a boarding-school was relieved of his position on
account of his active interest in psychoanalysis. He raised objec-
tions and a Berne newspaper made public the judgment of the
school authorities. I quote from that article some sentences which
apply to psychoanalysis: "Moreover, we are surprised at the
many far-fetched and artificial examples as found in the afore-
mentioned book of Dr. Pfister of Zurich. . . . Thus, it cer-
tainly is a cause of surprise when the director of a boarding-
school so uncritically accepts all these assertions and apparent
proofs." These observations are offered as the decisions of "one
who judges calmly. " I rather think this calm is "artificial." Let
us examine these remarks more closely in the hope that a little
reflection and knowledge of the subject can be no detriment
to calm judgment.

It is positively refreshing to see how quickly and unerringly
some individuals can judge a delicate question of abstruse psy-
chology by first impressions. The interpretations seem to them
far-fetched and forced, they do not please them, so the interpre-
tations are wrong and the whole business of interpretation
amounts to nothing. No fleeting thought ever brushes the other
possibility, that these interpretations must appear as they are
for good reasons, which would give rise to the further question
of what these good reasons might be.

The content thus judged generally relates to the results of
displacement, with which you have become acquainted as the
strongest device of the dream censor. It is with the help of dis-
placements that the dream censor creates substitute-formations
which we have designated as allusions. But they are allusions
which are not easily recognized as such, and from which it is
not easy to find one's way back to the original and which are
connected with this original by means of the strangest, most
unusual, most superficial associations. In all of these cases,
however, it is a question of matters which are to be hidden,
which were intended for concealment; this is what the dream
censor aims to do. We must not expect to find a thing that has
been concealed in its accustomed place in the spot where it
belongs. In this respect the Commissions for the Surveillance
of Frontiers now in office are more cunning than the Swiss
school authorities. In their search for documents and maps they

200 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

are not content to search through, portfolios and letter cases
but they also take into account the possibility that spies and
smugglers might carry such severely proscribed articles in the
most concealed parts of their clothing, where they certainly do
not belong, as for example between the double soles of their
boots. If the concealed objects are found in such a place, they
certainly are very far-fetched, but nevertheless they have been
"fetched."

If we recognize that the most remote, the most extraordinary
associations between the latent dream element and its manifest
substitute are possible, associations appearing ofttimes comical,
ofttimes witty, we follow in so doing a wealth of experience
derived from examples whose solutions we have, as a rule, not
found ourselves. Often it is not possible to give such interpre-
tations from our own examples. No sane person could guess
the requisite association. The dreamer either gives us the trans-
lation with one stroke by means of his immediate association —
he can do this, for this substitute formation was created by his
mind— or he provides us with so much material that the solution
no longer demands any special astuteness but forces itself upon
us as inevitable. If the dreamer does not help us in either of
these two ways, then indeed the manifest element in question
remains forever incomprehensible to us. Allow me to give you
one more such example of recent occurrence. One of my patients
lost her father during the time that she was undergoing treat-
ment. Since then she has made use of every opportunity to
bring him back to life in her dreams. In one of her dreams her
father appears in a certain connection, of no further importance
here, and says, "It is a quarter past eleven, it is half past eleven,
it is quarter of twelve." All she can think of in connection
with this curious incident is the recollection that her father liked
to see his grown-up children appear punctually at the general
meal hour. That very thing probably had some connection with
the dream element, but permitted of no conclusion as to its
source. Judging from the situation of the treatment at that
time, there was a justified suspicion that a carefully suppressed
critical rebellion against her loved and respected father played
its part in this dream. Continuing her associations, and ap-
parently far afield from topics relevant to the dream, the
dreamer relates that yesterday many things of a psychological

Doubtful Points and Criticism 201

nature had been discussed in her presence, and that a relative
made the remark: "The cave man (Urmensch) continues to live
in all of us." Now we think we understand. That gave her an
excellent opportunity of picturing her father as continuing to
live. So in the dream she made of him a clockman (Uhrmensch)
by having him announce the quarter-hours at noon time.

You may not be able to disregard the similarity which this
examples bears to a pun, and it really has happened frequently
that the dreamer's pun is attributed to the interpreter. There
are still other examples in which it is not at all easy to decide
whether one is dealing with a joke or a dream. But you will
recall that the same doubt confronted us when we were dealing
with slips of the tongue. A man tells us a dream of his, that
his uncle, while they were sitting in the latter 's automobile,
gave him a kiss. He very quickly supplies the interpretation
himself. It means "awto-eroticism," (a term taken from the
study of the libido, or love impulse, and designating satisfaction
of that impulse without an external object). Did this man per-
mit himself to make fun of us and give out as a dream a pun that
occurred to him? I do not believe so; he really dreamed it.
Whence comes the astounding similarity? This question at one
time led me quite a ways from my path, by making it necessary
for me to make a thorough investigation of the problem of humor
itself. By so doing I came to the conclusion that the origin of
wit lies in a foreconscious train of thought which is left for a
moment to unconscious manipulation, from which it then emerges
as a joke. Under the influence of the unconscious it experiences
the workings of the mechanisms there in force, namely, of con-
densation and displacement, that is, of the same processes which
we found active in the dream work, and it is to this agreement
that we are to ascribe the similarity between wit and the dream,
wherever it occurs. The unintentional "dream joke" has, how-
ever, none of the pleasure-giving quality of the ordinary joke.
Why that is so, greater penetration into the study of wit may
teach you. The "dream joke" seems a poor joke to us, it does
not make us laugh, it leaves us cold.

Here we are also following in the footsteps of ancient dream
interpretation, which has left us, in addition to much that is
useless, many a good example of dream interpretation which
we ourselves cannot surpass. I am -now going to tell you a

202 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

dream of historical importance which Plutarch and Artemidorus
of Daldis both tell concerning Alexander the Great, with certain
variations. When the King was engaged in besieging the city
of Tyre (322 B.C.), which was being stubbornly defended, he
once dreamed that he saw a dancing satyr. Aristandros, his
dream interpreter, who accompanied the army, interpreted this
dream for him by making of the word Satyros, <ra Tvpo?,
"Thine is Tyre," and thus promising him a triumph over the
city. Alexander allowed himself to be influenced by this inter-
pretation to continue the siege, and finally captured Tyre. The
interpretation, which seems artificial enough, was without doubt
the correct one.

3. I can imagine that it will make a special impression on
you to hear that objections to our conception of the dream have
been raised also by persons who, as psychoanalysts, have them-
selves been interested in the interpretation of dreams. It would
have been too extraordinary if so pregnant an opportunity for
new errors had remained unutilized, and thus, owing to compre-
hensible confusions and unjustified generalizations, there have
been assertions made which, in point of incorrectness are not
far behind the medical conception of dreams. One of these you
already know. It is the declaration that the dream is occupied
with the dreamer's attempts at adaptation to his present environ-
ment, and attempts to solve future problems, in other words,
that the dream follows a "prospective tendency" (A. Maeder).
We have already shown that this assertion is based upon a
confusion of the dream with the latent thoughts of the dream,
that as a premise it overlooks the existence of the dream-work.
In characterizing that psychic activity which is unconscious and
to which the latent thoughts of the dream belong, the above
assertion is no novelty, nor is it exhaustive, for this unconscious
psychic activity occupies itself with many other things besides
preparation for the future. A much worse confusion seems to
underlie the assurance that back of every dream one finds the
"death-clause," or death-wish. I am not quite certain what
this formula is meant to indicate, but I suppose that back of it
is a confusion of the dream with the whole personality of the
dreamer.

An unjustified generalization, based on few good examples,
is the pronouncement that every dream permits of two interpre«

Doubtful Points and Criticism 203

tations, one such as we have explained, the so-called psycho-
analytic, and another, the so-called anagogical or mystical, which
ignores the instinctive impulses and aims at a representation of
the higher psychic functions (V. Silberer). There are such
dreams, but you will try in vain to extend this conception to
even a majority of the dreams. But after everything you have
heard, the statement will seem very incomprehensible that all
dreams can be interpreted bisexually, that is, as the concurrence
of two tendencies which may be designated as male and female
(A. Adler) . To be sure, there are a few such dreams, and you
may learn later that these are built up in the manner of certain
hysterical symptoms. I mention all these newly discovered gen-
eral characteristics of the dream in order to warn you against
them or at least in order not to leave you in doubt as to how
I judge them.

4. At one time the objective value of dream research was
called into question by the observation that patients undergoing
analysis accommodate the content of their dreams to the favorite
theories of their physicians, so that some dream predominantly
of sexual impulses, others of the desire for power and still others
even of rebirth (W. Stekel). The weight of this observation is
diminished by the consideration that people dreamed before
there was such a thing as a psychoanalytic treatment to influence
their dreams, and that those who are now undergoing treatment
were also in the habit of dreaming before the treatment was
commenced. The meaning of this novel discovery can soon be
recognized as a matter of course and as of no consequence for
Hie theory of the dream. Those day-remnants which give rise
to the dream are the overflow from the strong interest of the
waking life. If the remarks of the physician and the stimuli
which he gives have become significant to the patient under
analysis, then they become a part of the day's remnants, can
serve as psychic stimuli for the formation of a dream along with
other, emotionally-charged, unsolved interests of the day, and
operate much as do the somatic stimuli which act upon the
sleeper during his sleep. Just like these other incitors of the
dream, the sequence of ideas which the physician sets in motion
may appear in the manifest content, or may be traced in the
latent content of the dream. Indeed, we know that one can
produce dreams experimentally, or to speak more accurately,

204 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

one can insert into the dream a part of the dream material.
Thus the analyst in influencing his patients, merely plays the
role of an experimenter in the manner of Hourly Void, who
places the limbs of his subjects in certain positions.

One can often influence the dreamer as to the subject-matter
of his dream, but one can never influence what he will dream
about it. The mechanism of the dream-work and the unconscious
wish that is hidden in the dream are beyond the reach of all
foreign influences. We already realized, when we evaluated the
dreams caused by bodily stimuli, that the peculiarity and self-
sufficiency of the dream life shows itself in the reaction with
which the dream retorts to the bodily or physical stimuli which
are presented. The statement here discussed, which aims to
throw doubt upon the objectivity of dream research, is again
based on a confusion — this time of the whole dream with the
dream material.

This much, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to tell you con-
cerning the problems of the dream. You will suspect that I have
omitted a great deal, and have yourselves discovered that I had
to be inconclusive on almost all points. But that is due to the
relation which the phenomena of the dream have to those of the
neuroses. We studied the dream by way of introduction to the
study of the neuroses, and that was surely more correct than
the reverse would have been. But just as the dream prepares us
for the understanding of the neuroses, so in turn the correct
evaluation of the dream can only be gained after a knowledge
of neurotic phenomena has been won.

I do not know what you will think about this, but I must assure
you that I do not regret having taken so much of your interest
and of your available time for the problems of the dream. There
is no other field in which one can so quickly become convinced
of the correctness of the assertions by which psychoanalysis
stands or falls. It will take the strenuous labor of many months,
even years, to show that the symptoms in a case of neurotic
break-down have their meaning, serve a purpose, and result
from the fortunes of the patient. On the other hand, the efforts
of a few hours suffice in proving the same content in a dream
product which at first seems incomprehensibly confused, and
thereby to confirm all the hypotheses of psychoanalysis, the un-
consciousness of psychic processes, the special mechanism which

Doubtful Points and Criticism 205

they follow, and the motive forces which manifest themselves in
them. And if we associate the thorough analogy in the construc-
tion of the dream and the neurotic symptom with the rapidity
of transformation which makes of the dreamer an alert and
reasonable individual, we gain the certainty that the neurosis also
is based only on a change in the balance of the forces of psychic
life.

Ill

GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

SIXTEENTH LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry

I AM very glad to welcome you back to continue our dis-
cussions. I last lectured to you on the psychoanalytic
treatment of errors and of the dream. To-day I should
like to introduce you to an understanding of neurotic
phenomena, which, as you soon will discover, have much in
common with both of those topics. But I shall tell you in
advance that I cannot leave you to take the same attitude
toward me that you had before. At that time I was anxious to
take no step without complete reference to your judgment. I
discussed much with you, I listened to your objections, in short,
I deferred to you and to your "normal common sense." That
is no longer possible, and for a very simple reason. As phe-
nomena, the dream and errors were not strange to you. One
might say that you had as much experience as I, or that you
could easily acquire as much. But neuroses are foreign to you ;
since you are not doctors yourselves you have had access to
them only through what I have told you. Of what use is the
best judgment if it is not supported by familiarity with the
material in question?

Do not, however, understand this as an announcement of
dogmatic lectures which demand your unconditional belief. That
would be a gross misunderstanding. I do not wish to convince
you. I am out to stimulate your interest and shake your
prejudices. If, in consequence of not knowing the facts, you
are not in a position to judge, neither should you believe nor
condemn. Listen and allow yourselves to be influenced by what
I tell you. One cannot be so easily convinced; at least if he
comes by convictions without effort, they soon prove to be value-
less and unable to hold their own. He only has a right to con-
viction who has handled the same material for many years and
who in so doing has gone through the same new and surprising
experiences again and again. Why, in matters of intellect, these

209

210 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

lightning conversions, these momentary repulsions? Do you
not feel that a coup de foudre, that love at first sight, origi-
nates in quite a different field, namely, in that of the emotions ?
We do not even demand that our patients should become con-
vinced of and predisposed to psychoanalysis. When they do,
they seem suspicious to us. The attitude we prefer in them is
one of benevolent scepticism. Will you not also try to let the
psychoanalytic conception develop in your mind beside the popu-
lar or "psychiatric"? They will influence each other, mutually
measure their strength, and some day work themselves into a
decision on your part.

On the other hand, you must not think for a moment that
what I present to you as the psychoanalytic conception is a
purely speculative system. Indeed, it is a sum total of experi-
ences and observations, either their direct expression or their
elaboration. Whether this elaboration is done adequately and
whether the method is justifiable will be tested in the further
progress of the science. After two and a half decades, now
that I am fairly advanced in years, I may say that it was par-
ticularly difficult, intensive and all-absorbing work which yielded
these observations. I have often had the impression that our
opponents were unwilling to take into consideration this objec-
tive origin of our statements, as if they thought it were only a
question of subjective ideas arising haphazard, ideas to which
another may oppose his every passing whim. This antagonistic
behavior is not entirely comprehensible to me. Perhaps the
physician's habit of steering clear of his neurotic patients and
listening so very casually to what they have to say allows him
to lose sight of the possibility of deriving anything valuable
from his patients' communications, and therefore, of making
penetrating observations on them. I take this opportunity of
promising you that I shall carry on little controversy in the
course of my lectures, least of all with individual controver-
sialists. I have never been able to convince myself of the truth
of the saying that controversy is the father of all things. I be-
lieve that it comes down to us from the Greek sophist philosophy
and errs as does the latter through the overvaluation of dia-
lectics. To me, on the contrary, it seems as if the so-called
scientific criticism were on the whole unfruitful, quite apart
from the fact that it is almost always carried on in a most per-

Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry 211

sonal spirit. For my part, up to a few years ago, I could even
boast that I had entered into a regular scientific dispute with
only one scholar (Lowenfeld, of Munich). The end of this was
that we became friends and have remained friends to this day.
But I did not repeat this attempt for a long time, because I was
Dot certain that the outcome would be the same.

Now you will surely judge that so to reject the discussion of
literature must evidence stubborness, a very special obtuseness
against objections, or, as the kindly colloquialisms of science
have it, "a complete personal bias." In answer, I would say
that should you attain to a conviction by such hard labor, you
would thereby derive a certain right to sustain it with some
tenacity. Furthermore, I should like to emphasize the fact that
I have modified my views on certain important points in the
course of my researches, changed them and replaced them by
new ones, and that I naturally made a public statement of that
fact each time. What has been the result of this frankness?
Some paid no attention at all to my self-corrections and even
to-day criticize me for assertions which have long since ceased
to have the same meaning for me. Others reproach me for just
this deviation, and on account of it declare me unreliable. For
is anyone who has changed his opinions several times still
trustworthy; is not his latest assertion, as well, open to error t
At the same time he who holds unswervingly to what he has
once said, or cannot be made to give it up quickly enough, is
called stubborn and biased. In the face of these contra-
dictory criticisms, what else can one do but be himself and act
according to his own dictates? That is what I have decided to
do, and I will not allow myself to be restrained from modifying
and adapting my theories as the progress of my experience de-
mands. In the basic ideas I have hitherto found nothing to
change, and I hope that such will continue to be the case.

Now I shall present to you the psychoanalytic conception of
neurotic manifestations. The natural thing for me to do is to
connect them to the phenomena we have previously treated, for
the sake of their analogy as well as their contrast. I will select
as symptomatic an act of frequent occurrence in my office hour.
Of course, the analyst cannot do much for those who seek him in
his medical capacity, and lay the woes of a lifetime before him
in fifteen minutes. His deeper knowledge makes it difficult for

212 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

him to deliver a snap decision as do other physicians — ' ' There is
nothing wrong with you" — and to give the advice, "Go to a
watering-place for a while." One of our colleagues, in answer
to the question as to what he did with his office patients, said,
shrugging his shoulders, that he simply "fines them so many
kronen for their mischief -making. " So it will not surprise you
to hear that even in the case of very busy analysts, the hours
for consultation are not very crowded. I have had the ordinary
door between my waiting room and my office doubled and
strengthened by a covering of felt. The purpose of this little
arrangement cannot be doubted. Now it happens over and
over again that people who are admitted from my waiting room
omit to close the door behind them ; in fact, they almost always
leave both doors open. As soon as I have noticed this I insist
rather gruffly that he or she go back in order to rectify the
omission, even though it be an elegant gentleman or a lady in
all her finery. This gives an impression of misapplied pedantry.
I have, in fact, occasionally discredited myself by such a demand,
since the individual concerned was one of those who cannot
touch even a door knob, and prefer as well to have their attend-
ants spared this contact. But most frequently I was right, for
he who conducts himself in this way, and leaves the door from
the waiting room into the physician's consultation room open,
belongs to the rabble and deserves to be received inhospitably.
Do not, I beg you, defend him until you have heard what
follows. For the fact is that this negligence of the patient's
only occurs when he has been alone in the waiting room and so
leaves an empty room behind him, never when others, strangers,
have been waiting with him. If that latter is the case, he knows
very well that it is in his interest not to be listened to while
he is talking to the physician, and never omits to close both the
doors with care.

This omission of the patient's is so predetermined that it be-
comes neither accidental nor meaningless, indeed, not even
unimportant, for, as we shall see, it throws light upon the
relation of this patient to the physician. He is one of the
great number of those who seek authority, who want to
be dazzled, intimidated. Perhaps he had inquired by tele-
phone as to what time he had best call, he had prepared
himself to come on a crowd of suppliants somewhat like those in

Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry 213

front of a branch milk station. He now enters an empty wait-
ing room which is, moreover, most modestly furnished, and he
is disappointed. He must demand reparation from the physician
for the wasted respect that he had tendered him, and so he
emits to close the door between the reception room and the
office. By this, he means to say to the physician: "Oh, well,
there is no one here anyway, and probably no one will come as
long as I am here." He would also be quite unmannerly and
supercilious during the consultation if his presumption were
not at once restrained by a sharp reminder.

You will find nothing in the analysis of this little symptomatic
act which was not previously known to you. That is to say, it
asserts that this act is not accidental, but has a motive, a mean-
ing, a purpose, that it has its assignable connections psychologi-
cally, and that it serves as a small indication of a more im-
portant psychological process. But above all it implies that the
process thus intimated is not known to the consciousness of the
individual in whom it takes place, for none of the patients who
left the two doors open would have admitted that they meant
by this omission to show me their contempt. Some could prob-
ably recall a slight sense of disappointment at entering an empty
waiting room, but the connection between this impression and
the symptomatic act which followed — of these, his consciousness
was surely not aware.

Now let us place, side by side with this small analysis of a
symptomatic act, an observation on a pathological case. I choose
one which is fresh in my mind and which can also be described
with relative brevity. A certain measure of minuteness of
detail is unavoidable in any such account.

A young officer, home on a short leave of absence, asked me
to see his mother-in-law who, in spite of the happiest circum-
stances, was embittering her own and her people's existence by
a senseless idea. I am introduced to a well preserved lady of
fifty-three with pleasant, simple manners, who gives the follow-
ing account without any hesitation : She is most happily married
and lives in the country with her husband, who operates a large
factory. She cannot say enough for the kind thoughtfulness of
her husband. They had married for love thirty years ago, and
since then there had never been a shadow, a quarrel or cause
for jealousy. Now, even though her two children are well mar-

214 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ried, the husband and father does not yet want to retire, from
a feeling of duty. A year ago there happened the incredible
thing, incomprehensible to herself as well. She gave complete
credence to an anonymous letter which accused her excellent
husband of having an affair with a young girl — and since then
her happiness is destroyed. The more detailed circumstances
were somewhat as follows : She had a chambermaid with whom
she had perhaps too often discussed intimate matters. This girl
pursued another young woman with positively malicious enmity
because the latter had progressed so much further in life, despite
the fact that she was of no better origin. Instead of going into
domestic service, the girl had obtained a business training, had
entered the factory and in consequence of the shorthandedness
due to the drafting of the clerks into the army had advanced
to a good position. She now lives in the factory itself, meets
all the gentlemen socially, and is even addressed as "Miss."
The girl who had remained behind in life was of course ready
to speak all possible evil of her one-time schoolmate. One day
our patient and her chambermaid were talking of an old gentle-
man who had been visiting at the house, and of whom it was
known that he did not live with his wife, but kept another
woman as his mistress. She does not know how it happened
that she suddenly remarked, "That would be the most awful
thing that could happen to me, if I should ever hear that my
good husband also had a mistress." The next day she received
an anonymous letter through the mail which, in a disguised
handwriting, carried this very communication which she had
conjured up. She concluded — it seems justifiably — that the
letter was the handiwork of her malignant chambermaid, for
the letter named as the husband's mistress the self -same woman
whom the maid persecuted with her hatred. Our patient, in
spite of the fact that she immediately saw through the intrigue
and had seen enough in her town to know how little credence
such cowardly denunciations deserve, was nevertheless at once
prostrated by the letter. She became dreadfully excited and
promptly sent for her husband in order to heap the bitterest
reproaches upon him. Her husband laughingly denied the
accusation and did the best that could be done. He called in
the family physician, who was as well the doctor in attendance
at the factory, and the latter added his efforts tr ^uiet the

Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry 215

unhappy woman. Their further procedure was also entirely
reasonable. The chambermaid was dismissed, but the pretended
rival was not. Since then, the patient claims she has repeatedly
so far calmed herself as no longer to believe the contents of the
anonymous letter, but this relief was neither thoroughgoing
nor lasting. It was enough to hear the name of the young lady
spoken or to meet her on the street in order to precipitate a
new attack of suspicion, pain and reproach.

This, now, is the case history of this good woman. It does
not need much psychiatric experience to understand that her
portrayal of her own case was, if anything, rather too mild in
contrast to other nervous patients. The picture, we say, was
dissimulated; in reality she had never overcome her belief in
the accusation of the anonymous letter.

Now what position does a psychiatrist take toward such a
case? We already know what he would do in the case of the
symptomatic act of the patient who does not close the doors to
the waiting room. He declares it an accident without psycho-
logical interest, with which he need not concern himself. But
this attitude cannot be maintained toward the pathological case
of the jealous woman. The symptomatic act seems no great
matter, but the symptom itself claims attention by reason of
its gravity. It is bound up with intense subjective suffering
while objectively it threatens to break up a home ; therefore its
claim to psychiatric interest cannot be put aside. The first
endeavor of the psychiatrist is to characterize the symptom by
some distinctive feature. The idea with which this woman
torments herself cannot in itself be called nonsensical, for it
does happen that elderly married men have affairs with young
girls. But there is something else about it that is nonsensical
and incredible. The patient has no reason beyond the declara-
tion in the anonymous letter to believe that her tender and
faithful husband belongs to this sort of married men, otherwise
not uncommon. She knows that this letter in itself carries no
proof; she can satisfactorily explain its origin; therefore she
ought to be able to persuade herself that she has no reason to
be jealous. Indeed she does this, but in spite of it she suffers
every bit as much as she would if she acknowledged this jealousy
as fully justified. We are agreed to call ideas of this sort, which
are inaccessible to arguments based on logic or on fact*.

210 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

"obsessions." Thus the good lady suffers from an "obsession
of jealousy" that is surely a distinctive characterization for
this pathological case.

Having reached this first certainty, our psychiatric interest
will have become aroused. If we cannot do away with a delu-
sion by taking reality into account, it can hardly have arisen
from reality. But the delusion, what is its origin? There are
delusions of the most widely varied content. "Why is it that in
our case the content should be jealousy? In what types of
persons are obsessions liable to occur, and, in particular, obses-
sions of jealousy? "We would like to turn to the psychiatrist
with such questions, but here he leaves us in the lurch. There
is only one of our queries which he heeds. He will examine
the family history of this woman and perhaps will give us the
answer: "The people who develop obsessions are those in whose
families similar and other psychic disturbances have repeatedly
occurred." In other words, if this lady develops an obsession
she does so because she was predisposed to it by reason of her
heredity. That is certainly something, but is it all that we
want to know ? Is it all that was effective in causing this break-
down? Shall we be content to assume that it is immaterial,
accidental and inexplicable why the obsession of jealousy de-
velops rather than any other? And may we also accept this
sentence about the dominance of the influence of heredity in
its negative meaning, that is, that no matter what experiences
came to this human being she was predestined to develop some
kind of obsession ? You will want to know why scientific psychi-
atry will give no further explanation. And I reply, "He is a
rascal who gives more than he owns." The psychiatrist does
not know of any path that leads him further in the explanation
of such a case. He must content himself with the diagnosis and
a prognosis which, despite a wealth of experience, is uncertain.

Yet, can psychoanalysis do more at this point? Indeed yes!
I hope to show you that even in so inaccessible a case as this
it can discover something which makes the further understanding
possible. May I ask you first to note the apparently insignifi-
cant fact that the patient actually provoked the anonymous
letter which now supports her delusion. The day before, she
announces to the intriguing chambermaid that if her husband
were to have an affair with a young girl it would be the worst

Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry 217

misfortune that could befall her. By so doing she really gave
the maid the idea of sending her the anonymous letter. The
obsession thus attains a certain independence from the letter;
it existed in the patient beforehand — perhaps as a dread j or was
it a wish? Consider, moreover, these additional details yielded
by an analysis of only two hours. The patient was indeed most
helpful when, after telling her story, she was urged to communi-
cate her further thoughts, ideas and recollections. She declared
that nothing came to her mind, that she had already told every-
thing. After two hours the undertaking had really to be given
up because she announced that she already felt cured and was
sure that the morbid idea would not return. Of course, she said
this because of this resistance and her fear of continuing the
analysis. In these two hours, however, she had let fall certain
remarks which made possible definite interpretation, indeed
made it incontestable; and this interpretation throws a clear
light on the origin of her obsession of jealousy. Namely, she
herself was very much infatuated with a certain young man, the
very same son-in-law upon whose urging she had come to con-
sult me professionally. She knew nothing of this infatuation,
or at least only a very little. Because of the existing relation-
ship, it was very easy for this infatuation to masquerade under
the guise of harmless tenderness. With all our further experi-
ence it is not difficult to feel our way toward an understanding
of the psychic life of this honest woman and good mother. Such
an infatuation, a monstrous, impossible thing, could not be
allowed to become conscious. But it continued to exist and
unconsciously exerted a heavy pressure. Something had to
happen, some sort of relief had to be found and the mechanism
of displacement which so constantly takes part in the origin of
obsessional jealousy offered the most immediate mitigation. If
not only she, old woman that she was, was in love with a young
man but if also her old husband had an affair with a young
girl, then she would be freed from the voice of her conscience
which accused her of infidelity. The phantasy of her husband's
infidelity was thus like a cooling salve on her burning wound.
Of her own love she never became conscious, but the reflection
of it, which would bring her such advantages, now became com-
pulsive, obsessional and conscious. Naturally all arguments di-
rected against the obsession were of no avail since they were

218 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

directed only to the reflection, and not to the original force to
which it owed its strength and which, unimpeachable, lay buried
in the unconscious.

Let us now piece together these fragments to see what a short
and impeded psychoanalysis can nevertheless contribute to the
understanding of this case. It is assumed of course that our
inquiries were carefully conducted, a point which I cannot at
this place submit to your judgment. In the first place, the obses-
sion becomes no longer nonsensical nor incomprehensible, it is
full of meaning, well motivated and an integral part of the
patient's emotional experience. Secondly, it is a necessary re-
action toward an unconscious psychological process, revealed in
other ways, and it is to this very circumstance that it owes its
obsessional nature, that is, its resistance to arguments based on
logic or fact. In itself the obsession is something wished for,
a kind of consolation. Finally, the experiences underlying the
condition are such as unmistakably determine an obsession of
jealousy and no other. You will also recognize the part played
by the two important analogies in the analysis of the symp-
tomatic act with reference to its meaning and intent and also
to its relation to an unconscious factor in the situation.

Naturally, we have not yet answered all the questions which
may be put on the basis of this case. Rather the case bristles
with further problems of a kind which we have not yet been
able to solve in any way, and of others which could not be solved
because of the disadvantage of the circumstances under which
we were working. For example: why is this happily married
woman open to an infatuation for her son-in-law, and why does
the relief which could have been obtained in other ways come
to her by way of this mirror-image, this projection of her own
condition upon her husband ? I trust you will not think that it
is idle and wanton to open such problems. Already we have
much material at our disposal for their possible solution. This
woman is in that critical age when her sexual needs undergo a
sudden and unwelcome exaggeration. This might in itself be
sufficient. In addition, her good and faithful mate may for
many years have been lacking in that sufficient sexual capacity
which the well-preserved woman needs for her satisfaction. We
have learned by experience to know that those very men whose
faithfulness is thus placed beyond a doubt are most gentle in

Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry 219

their treatment of their wives and unusually forbearing toward
their nervous complaints. Furthermore, the fact that it was
just the young husband of a daughter who became the object of
her abnormal infatuation is by no means insignificant. A strong
erotic attachment to the daughter, which in the last analysis
leads back to the mother's sexual constitution, will often find
a way to live on under such a disguise. May I perhaps remind
you in this connection that the relationship between mother and
son-in-law has seemed particularly delicate since all time and is
one which among primitive peoples gave rise to very powerful
taboos and avoidances.1 It often transgresses our cultural
standards positively as well as negatively. I cannot tell you
of course which of these three factors were at work in our case ;
whether two of them only, or whether all of them cooperated,
for as you know I did not have the opportunity to continue the
analysis beyond two hours.

I realize at this point, ladies and gentlemen, that I have been
speaking entirely of things for which your understanding was
not prepared. I did this in order to carry through the com-
parison of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. May I now ask one
thing of you? Have you noticed any contradiction between
them? Psychiatry does not apply the technical methods of
psychoanalysis, and neglects to look for any significance in the
content of the obsession. Instead of first seeking out more
specific and immediate causes, psychiatry refers us to the very
general and remote source — heredity. But does this imply a
contradiction, a conflict between them? Do they not rather
supplement one another? For does the hereditary factor deny
the significance of the experience, is it not rather true that both
operate together in the most effective way ? You must admit that
there is nothing in the nature of psychiatric work which must
repudiate psychoanalytic research. Therefore, it is the psychi-
atrists who oppose psychoanalysis, not psychiatry itself. Psycho-
analysis stands in about the same relation to psychiatry as does
histology to anatomy. The one studies the outer forms of organs,
the other the closer structure of tissues and cells. A contradic-
tion between two types of study, where one simplifies the other,
is not easily conceivable. You know that anatomy to-day forms
the basis of scientific medicine, but there was a time when the

1 Compare 8. Freud, Totem and Taboo. 1913.

220 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

dissection of human corpses to learn the inner structure of the
body was as much frowned upon as the practice of psycho-
analysis, which seeks to ascertain the inner workings of the
human soul, seems proscribed to-day. And presumably a not too
distant time will bring us to the realization that a psychiatry
which aspires to scientific depth is not possible without a real
knowledge of the deeper unconscious processes in the psychic
life.

Perhaps this much-attacked psychoanalysis has now found
some friends among you who are anxious to see it justify itself
as well from another aspect, namely, the therapeutic side. You
know that the therapy of psychiatry has hitherto not been able
to influence obsessions. Can psychoanalysis perhaps do so,
thanks to its insight into the mechanism of these symptoms?
No, ladies and gentlemen, it cannot; for the present at least it
is just as powerless in the face of these maladies as every other
therapy. We can understand what it was that happened within
the patient, but we have no means of making the patient him-
self understand this. In fact, I told you that I could not extend
the analysis of the obsession beyond the first steps. Would you
therefore assert that analysis is objectionable in such cases be-
cause it remains without result? I think not. We have the
right, indeed we have the duty to pursue scientific research
without regard to an immediate practical effect. Some day,
though we do not know when or where, every little scrap of
knowledge will have been translated into skill, even into thera-
peutic skill. If psychoanalysis were as unsuccessful in all other
forms of nervous and psychological disease as it is in the case
of the obsession, it would nevertheless remain fully justified as
an irreplaceable method of scientific research. It is true that
we would then not be in a position to practice it, for the human
subjects from which we must learn, live and will in their own
right; they must have motives of their own in order to assist
in the work, but they would deny themselves to us. Therefore
let me conclude this session by telling you that there are compre-
hensive groups of nervous diseases concerning which our better
understanding has actually been translated into therapeutic
power; moreover, that in disturbances which are most difficult
to reach we can under certain conditions secure results which
are second to none in the field of internal therapeutics.

SEVENTEENTH LECTUKE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

The Meaning of the Symptoms

IN the last lecture I explained to you that clinical psychiatry
concerns itself very little with the form under which the
symptoms appear or with the burden they carry, but that
it is precisely here that psychoanalysis steps in and shows
that the symptom carries a meaning and is connected with the
experience of the patient. The meaning of neurotic symptoms
was first discovered by J. Breuer in the study and felicitous cure
of a case of hysteria which has since become famous (1880-82).
It is true that P. Janet independently reached the same result ;
literary priority must in fact be accorded to the French scholar,
since Breuer published his observations more than a decade later
(1893-95) during his period of collaboration with me. On the
whole it may be of small importance to us who is responsible for
this discovery, for you know that every discovery is made more
than once, that none is made all at once, and that success is
not meted out according to deserts. America is not named after
Columbus. Before Breuer and Janet, the great psychiatrist
Leuret expressed the opinion that even for the deliria of the
insane, if we only understood how to interpret them, a meaning
could be found. I confess that for a considerable period of
time I was willing to estimate very highly the credit due to
P. Janet in the explanation of neurotic symptoms, because he
Baw in them the expression of subconscious ideas (idees incon
scientes) with which the patients were obsessed. But since then
Janet has expressed himself most conservatively, as though he
wanted to confess that the term "subconscious" had been for
him nothing more than a mode of speech, a shift, "une fafon de
parler," by the use of which he had nothing definite in mind.
I now no longer understand Janet's discussions, but I believe
that he has needlessly deprived himself of high credit.

The neurotic symptoms then have their meaning just like
errors and the dream, and like these they are related to the lives

221

222 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

of the persons in whom they appear. The importance of thi»
insight into the nature of the symptom can best be brought home
to you by way of examples. That it is borne out always and in
all cases, I can only assert, not prove. He who gathers his own
experience will be convinced of it. For certain reasons, how-
ever, I shall draw my instances not from hysteria, but from
another fundamentally related and very curious neurosis con-
cerning which I wish to say a few introductory words to you.
This so-called compulsion neurosis is not so popular as the
widely known hysteria ; it is, if I may use the expression, not so
noisily ostentatious, behaves more as a private concern of the
patient, renounces bodily manifestations almost entirely and
creates all its symptoms psychologically. Compulsion neurosis
and hysteria are those forms of neurotic disease by the study of
which psychoanalysis has been built up, and in whose treatment
as well the therapy celebrates its triumphs. Of these the com-
pulsion neurosis, which does not take that mysterious leap from
the psychic to the physical, has through psychoanalytic research
become more intimately comprehensible and transparent to us
than hysteria, and we have come to understand that it reveals
far more vividly certain extreme characteristics of the neuroses.
The chief manifestations of compulsion neurosis are these:
the patient is occupied by thoughts that in reality do not interest
him, is moved by impulses that appear alien to him, and is im-
pelled to actions which, to be sure, afford him no pleasure, but
the performance of which he cannot possibly resist. The
thoughts may be absurd in themselves or thoroughly indifferent
to the individual, often they are absolutely childish and in all
cases they are the result of strained thinking, which exhausts
the patient, who surrenders himself to them most unwillingly.
Against his will he is forced to brood and speculate as though
it were a matter of life or death to him. The impulses, which
the patient feels within himself, may also give a childish or
ridiculous impression, but for the most part they bear the
terrifying aspect of temptations to fearful crimes, so that the
patient not only denies them, but flees from them in horror and
protects himself from actual execution of his desires through
inhibitory renunciations and restrictions upon his personal lib-
erty. As a matter of fact he never, not a single time, carries
any of these impulses into effect; the result is always that his

The Meaning of the Symptoms 223

evasion and precaution triumph. The patient really carries out
only very harmless trivial acts, so-called compulsive acts, for
the most part repetitions and ceremonious additions to the occu-
pations of every-day life, through which its necessary perform-
ances— going to bed, washing, dressing, walking — become long-
winded problems of almost insuperable difficulty. The abnormal
ideas, impulses and actions are in nowise equally potent in
individual forms and cases of compulsion neurosis ; it is the rule,
rather, that one or the other of these manifestations is the
dominating factor, and gives the name to the disease ; that all
these forms, however, have a great deal in common is quite
undeniable.

Surely this means violent suffering. I believe that the wildest
psychiatric phantasy could not have succeeded in deriving any-
thing comparable, and if one did not actually see it every day,
one could hardly bring oneself to believe it. Do not think, how-
ever, that you give the patient any help when you coax him to
divert himself, to put aside these stupid ideas and to set himself
to something useful in the place of his whimsical occupations.
This is just what he would like of his own accord, for he pos-
sesses all his senses, shares your opinion of his compulsion symp-
toms, in fact volunteers it quite readily. But he cannot do
otherwise; whatever activities actually are released under com-
pulsion neurosis are carried along by a driving energy, such as
is probably never met with in normal psychic life. He has only
one remedy — to transfer and change. In place of one stupid
idea he can think of a somewhat milder absurdity, he can pro-
ceed from one precaution and prohibition to another, or carry
through another ceremonial. He may shift, but he cannot
annul the compulsion. One of the chief characteristics of the
sickness is the instability of the symptoms ; they can be shifted
very far from their original form. It is moreover striking that
the contrasts present in all psychological experience are so very
sharply drawn in this condition. In addition to the compulsion
of positive and negative content, an intellectual doubt makes
itself felt that gradually attacks the most ordinary and assured
certainties. All these things merge into steadily increasing un-
certainty, lack of energy, curtailment of personal liberty, despite
the fact that the patient suffering from compulsion neurosis is
originally a most energetic character, often of extraordinary ob-

224 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ptinacy, as a rule intellectually gifted above the average. For
the most part he has attained a desirable stage of ethical de-
velopment, is overconscientious and more than usually correct.
You can imagine that it takes no inconsiderable piece of work
to find one's way through this maze of contradictory characteris-
tics and symptoms. Indeed, for the present our only object is to
understand and to interpret some symptoms of this disease.

Perhaps in reference to our previous discussions, you would
like to know the position of present-day psychiatry to the prob-
lems of the compulsion neurosis. This is covered in a very slim
chapter. Psychiatry gives names to the various forms of com-
pulsion, but says nothing further concerning them. Instead it
emphasizes the fact that those who show these symptoms are
degenerates. That yields slight satisfaction, it is an ethical
judgment, a condemnation rather than an explanation. We are
led to suppose that it is in the unsound that all these peculiari-
ties may be found. Now we do believe that persons who develop
such symptoms must differ fundamentally from other people.
But we would like to ask, are they more "degenerate" than other
nervous patients, those suffering, for instance, from hysteria or
other diseases of the mind? The characterization is obviously
too general. One may even doubt whether it is at all justified,
when one learns that such symptoms occur in excellent men
and women of especially great and universally recognized ability.
In general we glean very little intimate knowledge of the great
men who serve us as models. This is due both to their own dis-
cretion and to the lying propensities of their biographers. Some-
times, however, a man is a fanatic disciple of truth, such as
Emile Zola, and then we hear from him the strange compulsion
habits from which he suffered all his life.1

Psychiatry has resorted to the expedient of speaking of
"superior degenerates." Very well — but through psychoanalysis
we have learned that these peculiar compulsion symptoms may
be permanently removed just like any other disease of normal
persons. I myself have frequently succeeded in doing this.

I will give you two examples only of the analysis of compul-
sion symptoms, one, an old observation, which cannot be replaced
by anything more complete, and one a recent study. I am limit-
ing myself to such a small number because in an account of this

*E. Toulouse, Emile Zola — Enquete medico — psychologique, Paris, 1896.

The Meaning of the Symptoms 225

nature it is necessary to be very explicit and to enter into every
detail.

A lady about thirty years old suffered from the most severe
compulsions. I might indeed have helped her if caprice of
fortune had not destroyed my work — perhaps I will yet have
occasion to tell you about it. In the course of each day the
patient often executed, among others, the following strange com-
pulsive act. She ran from her room into an adjoining one,
placed herself in a definite spot beside a table which stood in
the middle of the room, rang for her maid, gave her a trivial
errand to do, or dismissed her without more ado, and then ran
back again. This was certainly not a severe symptom of disease,
but it still deserved to arouse curiosity. Its explanation was
found, absolutely without any assistance on the part of the
physician, in the very simplest way, a way to which no one can
take exception. I hardly know how I alone could have guessed
the meaning of this compulsive act, or have found any sugges-
tion toward its interpretation. As often as I had asked the
patient: "Why do you do this? Of what use is it?" she had
answered, "I don't know." But one day after I had succeeded
in surmounting a grave ethical doubt of hers she suddenly saw
the light and related the history of the compulsive act. More
than ten years prior she had married a man far older than
herself, who had proved impotent on the bridal night. Countless
times during the night he had run from his room to hers to
repeat the attempt, but each time without success. In the morn-
ing he said angrily: "It is enough to make one ashamed before
the maid who does the beds," and took a bottle of red ink that
happened to be in the room, and poured its contents on the sheet,
but not on the place where such a stain would have been justi-
fiable. At first I did not understand the connection between
this reminiscence and the compulsive act in question, for the
only agreement I could find between them was in the running
from one room into another, — possibly also in the appearance
of the maid. Then the patient led me to the table in the second
room and let me discover a large spot on the cover. She ex-
plained also that she placed herself at the table in such a way
that the maid could not miss seeing the stain. Now it was no
longer possible to doubt the intimate relation of the scene after

226 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

her bridal night and her present compulsive act, but there were
still a number of things to be learned about it.

In the first place, it is obvious that the patient identifies her-
self with her husband, she is acting his part in her imitation
of his running from one room into the other. We must then
admit — if she holds to this role — that she replaces the bed and
sheet by table and cover. This may seem arbitrary, but we have
not studied dream symbolism in vain. In dreams also a table
which must be interpreted as a bed, is frequently seen. "Bed
and board" together represent married life, one may therefore
easily be used to represent the other.

The evidence that the compulsive act carries meaning would
thus be plain; it appears as a representation, a repetition of
the original significant scene. However, we are not forced to
stop at this semblance of a solution; when we examine more
closely the relation between these two people, we shall probably
be enlightened concerning something of wider importance,
namely, the purpose of the compulsive act. The nucleus of this
purpose is evidently the summoning of the maid; to her she
wishes to show the stain and refute her husband's remark:
"It is enough to shame one before the maid." He — whose part
she is playing — therefore feels no shame before the maid, hence
the stain must be in the right place. So we see that she has
not merely repeated the scene, rather she has amplified it, cor-
rected it and "turned it to the good." Thereby, however, she
also corrects something else, — the thing which was so embarrass-
ing that night and necessitated the use of the red ink — im-
potence. The compulsive act then says: "No, it is not true, he
did not have to be ashamed before the maid, he was not im-
potent." After the manner of a dream she represents the
fulfillment of this wish in an overt action, she is ruled by the
desire to help her husband over that unfortunate incident.

Everything else that I could tell you about this case supports
this clue more specifically ; all that we otherwise know about her
tends to strengthen this interpretation of a compulsive act
incomprehensible in itself. For years the woman has lived sep-
arated from her husband and is struggling with the intention
to obtain a legal divorce. But she is by no means free from
him; she forces herself to remain faithful to him, she retires
from the world to avoid temptation; in her imagination she

The Meaning of the Symptoms 227

excuses and idealizes him. The deepest secret of her malady is
that by means of it she shields her husband from malicious
gossip, justifies her separation from him, and renders possible
for him a comfortable separate life. Thus the analysis of a
harmless compulsive act leads to the very heart of this case and
at the same time reveals no inconsiderable portion of the secret
of the compulsion neurosis in general. I shall be glad to have
you dwell upon this instance, as it combines conditions that one
can scarcely demand in other cases. The interpretation of the
symptoms was discovered by the patient herself in one flash,
without the suggestion or interference of the analyst. It came
about by the reference to an experience, which did not, as is
usually the case, belong to the half-forgotten period of childhood,
but to the mature life of the patient, in whose memory it had
remained unobliterated. All the objections which critics ordi-
narily offer to our interpretation of symptoms fail in this case
Of course, we are not always so fortunate.

And one thing more ! Have you not observed how this insig-
nificant compulsive act initiated us into the intimate life of the
invalid? A woman can scarcely relate anything more intimate
than the story of her bridal night, and is it without further
significance that we just happened to come on the intimacies of
her sexual life ? It might of course be the result of the selection
I have made in this instance. Let us not judge too quickly and
turn our attention to the second instance, one of an entirely
different kind, a sample of a frequently occurring variety,
namely, the sleep ritual.

A nineteen-year old, well-developed, gifted girl, an only child,
who was superior to her parents in education and intellectual
activity, had been wild and mischievous in her childhood, but
has become very nervous during the last years without any
apparent outward cause. She is especially irritable with her
mother, always discontented, depressed, has a tendency toward
indecision and doubt, and is finally forced to confess that she
can no longer walk alone on public squares or wide thorough-
fares. "We shall not consider at length her complicated con-
dition, which requires at least two diagnoses — agoraphobia and
compulsion neurosis. We will dwell only upon the fact that this
girl has also developed a sleep ritual, under which she allows
her parents to suffer much discomfort. In a certain sense, we

228 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

may say that every normal person has a sleep ritual, in other
words that he insists on certain conditions, the absence of which
hinders him from falling asleep; he has created certain ob-
servances by which he bridges the transition from waking to
sleeping and these he repeats every evening in the same manner.
But everything that the healthy person demands in order to
obtain sleep is easily understandable and, above all, when ex-
ternal conditions necessitate a change, he adapts himself easily
and without loss of time. But the pathological ritual is rigid,
it persists by virtue of the greatest sacrifices, it also masks itself
with a reasonable justification and seems, in the light of super-
ficial observation, to differ from the normal only by exaggerated
pedantry. But under closer observation we notice that the mask
is transparent, for the ritual covers intentions that go far beyond
this reasonable justification, and other intentions as well that
are in direct contradietion to this reasonable justification. Our
patient cites as the motive of her nightly precautions that she
must have quiet in order to sleep; therefore she excludes all
sources of noise. To accomplish this, she does two things: the
large clock in her room is stopped, all other clocks are removed ;
not even the wrist watch on her night-table is suffered to remain.
Flowerpots and vases are placed on her desk so that they cannot
fall down during the night, and in breaking disturb her sleep.
She knows that these precautions are scarcely justifiable for the
sake of quiet ; the ticking of the small watch could not be heard
even if it should remain on the night-table, and moreover we
all know that the regular ticking of a clock is conducive to
sleep rather than disturbing. She does admit that there is not
the least probability that flowerpots and vases left in place
might of their own accord fall and break during the night. She
drops the pretense of quiet for the other practice of this sleep
ritual. She seems on the contrary to release a source of dis-
turbing noises by the demand that the door between her own
room and that of her parents remain half open, and she insures
this condition by placing various objects in front of the open
door. The most important observances concern the bed itself.
The large pillow at the head of the bed may not touch the
wooden back of the bed. The small pillow for her head must
lie on the large pillow to form a rhomb; she then places her
head exactly upon the diagonal of the rhomb. Before covering

The Meaning of the Symptoms 229

herself, the featherbed must be shaken so that its foot end
becomes quite flat, but she never omits to press this down and
redistribute the thickness.

Allow me to pass over the other trivial incidents of this ritual ;
they would teach us nothing new and cause too great digression
from our purpose. Do not overlook, however, the fact that all
this does not run its course quite smoothly. Everything is
pervaded by the anxiety that things have not been done properly ;
they must be examined, repeated. Her doubts seize first on one,
then on another precaution, and the result is that one or two
hours elapse during which the girl cannot and the intimidated
parents dare not sleep.

These torments were not so easily analyzed as the compulsive
act of our former patient. In the working out of the interpreta-
tions I had to hint and suggest to the girl, and was met on her
part either by positive denial or mocking doubt. This first re-
action of denial, however, was followed by a time when she
occupied herself of her own accord with the possibilities that
had been suggested, noted the associations they called out, pro-
duced reminiscences, and established connections, until through
her own efforts she had reached and accepted all interpretations.
In so far as she did this, she desisted as well from the per-
formance of her compulsive rules, and even before the treatment
had ended she had given up the entire ritual. You must also
know that the nature of present-day analysis by no means enables
us to follow out each individual symptom until its meaning be-
comes clear. Bather it is necessary to abandon a given theme
again and again, yet with the certainty that we will be led
back to it in some other connection. The interpretation of the
symptoms in this case, which I am about to give you, is a
synthesis of results, which, with the interruptions of other work,
needed weeks and months for their compilation.

Our patient gradually learns to understand that she has
banished clocks and watches from her room during the night
because the clock is the symbol of the female genital. The clock,
which we have learned to interpret as a symbol for other things
also, receives this role of the genital organ through its relation
to periodic occurrences at equal intervals. A woman may for
Instance be found to boast that her menstruation is as regular
as clockwork The special fear of our patient, however, was

230 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

that the ticking of the clock would disturb her in her sleep. The
ticking of the clock may be compared to the throbbing of the
clitoris during sexual excitement. Frequently she had actually
been awakened by this painful sensation and now this fear of
an erection of the clitoris caused her to remove all ticking clocks
during the night. Flowerpots and vases are, as are all vessels,
also female symbols. The precaution, therefore, that they should
not fall and break at night, was not without meaning. We know
the widespread custom of breaking a plate or dish when an
engagement is celebrated. The fragment of which each guest
possesses himself symbolizes his renunciation of his claim to the
bride, a renunciation which we may assume as based on the
monogamous marriage law. Furthermore, to this part of her
ceremonial our patient adds a reminiscence and several associa-
tions. As a child she had slipped once and fallen with a bowl
of glass or clay, had cut her finger, and bled violently. As she
grew up and learned the facts of sexual intercourse, she de-
veloped the fear that she might not bleed during her bridal
night and so not prove to be a virgin. Her precaution against
the breaking of vases was a rejection of the entire virginity
complex, including the bleeding connected with the first co-
habitation. She rejected both the fear to bleed and the contra-
dictory fear not to bleed. Indeed her precautions had very little
to do with a prevention of noise.

One day she guessed the central idea of her ceremonial, when
she suddenly understood her rule not to let the pillow come in
contact with the bed. The pillows always had seemed a woman
to her, the erect back of the bed a man. By means of magic,
we may say, she wished to keep apart man and wife ; it was her
parents she wished to separate, so to prevent their marital
intercourse. She had sought to attain the same end by more
direct methods in earlier years, before the institution of her
ceremonial. She had simulated fear or exploited a genuine
timidity in order to keep open the door between the parents'
bedroom and the nursery. This demand had been retained in
her present ceremonial. Thus she had gained the opportunity
of overhearing her parents, a proceeding which at one time
subjected her to months of sleeplessness. Not content with this
disturbance to her parents, she was at that time occasionally
able to gain her point and sleep between father and mother in

The Meaning of the Symptoms 231

their very bed. Then "pillow" and "wooden wall" could
really not come in contact. Finally when she became so big
that her presence between the parents could not longer be
borne comfortably, she consciously simulated fear and actually
succeeded in changing places with her mother and taking her
place at her father's side. This situation was undoubtedly the
starting point for the phantasies, whose after-effects made them-
selves felt in her ritual.

If a pillow represented a woman, then the shaking of the
featherbed till all the feathers were lumped at one end, rounding
it into a prominence, must have its meaning also. It meant the
impregnation of the wife ; the ceremonial, however, never failed
to provide for the annulment of this pregnancy by the flattening
down of the feathers. Indeed, for years our patient had feared
that the intercourse between her parents might result in another
child which would be her rival. Now, where the large pillow
represents a woman, the mother, then the small pillow could be
nothing but the daughter. Why did this pillow have to be
placed so as to form a rhomb ; and why did the girl's head have
to rest exactly upon the diagonal? It was easy to remind the
patient that the rhomb on all walls is the rune used to represent
the open female genital. She herself then played the part of
the man, the father, and her head took the place of the male
organ. (Cf. the symbol of beheading to represent castration.)

Wild ideas, you will say, to run riot in the head of a virgin
girl. I admit it, but do not forget that I have not created these
ideas but merely interpreted them. A sleep ritual of this kind
is itself very strange, and you cannot deny the correspondence
between the ritual and the phantasies that yielded us the inter-
pretation. For my part I am most anxious that you observe in
this connection that no single phantasy was projected in the
ceremonial, but a number of them had to be integrated, — they
must have their nodal points somewhere in space. Observe also
that the observance of the ritual reproduce the sexual desire
now positively, now negatively, and serve in part as their
rejection, again as their representation.

It would be possible to make a better analysis of this ritual by
relating it to other symptoms of the patient. But we cannot
digress in that direction. Let the suggestion suffice that the
girl is subject to an erotic attachment to her father, the begin-

232 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ning of which goes back to her earliest childhood. That perhaps
is the reason for her unfriendly attitude toward her mother.
Also we cannot escape the fact that the analysis of this symp-
tom again points to the sexual life of the patient. The more
we penetrate to the meaning and purpose of neurotic symptoms,
the less surprising will this seem to us.

By means of two selected illlustrations I have demonstrated
to you that neurotic symptoms carry just as much meaning as
do errors and the dream, and that they are intimately connected
with the experience of the patient. Can I expect you to believe
this vitally significant statement on the strength of two exam-
ples? No. But can you expect me to cite further illustrations
until you declare yourself convinced? That too is impossible,
since considering the explicitness with which I treat each indi-
vidual case, I would require a five-hour full semester course for
the explanation of this one point in the theory of the neuroses.
I must content myself then with having given you one proof
for my assertion and refer you for the rest to the literature
of the subject, above all to the classical interpretation of symp-
toms in Breuer's first case (hysteria) as well as to the striking
clarification of obscure symptoms in the so-called dementia
praecox by C. G. Jung, dating from the time when this scholar
was still content to be a mere psychoanalyst — and did not yet
want to a prophet ; and to all the articles that have subsequently
appeared in our periodicals. It is precisely investigations of this
sort which are plentiful. Psychoanalysts have felt themselves
so much attracted by the analysis, interpretation and translation
of neurotic symptoms, that by contrast they seem temporarily
to have neglected other problems of neurosis.

Whoever among you takes the trouble to look into the matter
will undoubtedly be deeply impressed by the wealth of evidential
material. But he will also encounter difficulties. We have
learned that the meaning of a symptom is found in its relation
to the experience of the patient. The more highly individualized
the symptom is, the sooner we may hope to establish these rela-
tions. Therefore the task resolves itself specifically into the
discovery for every nonsensical idea and useless action of a past
situation wherein the idea had been justified and the action
purposeful. A perfect example for this kind of symptom is the
compulsive act of our patient who ran to the table and rang

The Meaning of the Symptoms 233

for the maid. But there are symptoms of a very different
nature which are by no means rare. They must be called
typical symptoms of the disease, for they are approximately
alike in all cases, in which the individual differences disappear
or shrivel to such an extent that it is difficult to connect them
with the specific experiences of the patient and to relate them
to the particular situations of his past. Let us again direct our
attention to the compulsion neurosis. The sleep ritual of our
second patient is already quite typical, but bears enough indi-
vidual features to render possible what may be called an historic
interpretation. But all compulsive patients tend to repeat, to
isolate their actions from others and to subject them to a
rhythmic sequence. Most of them wash too much. Agoraphobia
(topophobia, fear of spaces), a malady which is no longer
grouped with the compulsion neurosis, but is now called anxiety
hysteria, invariably shows the same pathological picture ; it re-
peats with exhausting monotony the same feature, the patient's
fear of closed spaces, of large open squares, of long stretched
streets and parkways, and their feeling of safety when ac-
quaintances accompany them, when a carriage drives after them,
etc. On this identical groundwork, however, the individual dif-
ferences between the patients are superimposed — moods one
might almost call them, which are sharply contrasted in the
various cases. The one fears only narrow streets, the other only
wide ones, the one can go out walking only when there are few
people abroad, the other when there are many. Hysteria also,
aside from its wealth of individual features, has a superfluity
of common typical symptoms that appear to resist any facile
historical methods of tracing them. But do not let us forget
that it is by these typical symptoms that we get our bearings
in reaching a diagnosis. When, in one case of hysteria we have
finally traced back a typical symptom to an experience or a
series of similar experiences, for instance followed back an
hysterical vomiting to its origin in a succession of disgust im-
pressions, another case of vomiting will confuse us by revealing
an entirely different chain of experiences, seemingly just as
effective. It seems almost as though hysterical patients must
vomit for some reason as yet unknown, and that the historic
factors, revealed by analysis, are chance pretexts, seized on as

234 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

opportunity best offered to serve the purposes of a deeper need.

Thus we soon reach the discouraging conclusion that although
we can satisfactorily explain the individual neurotic symptom
by relating it to an experience, our science fails us when it comes
to the typical symptoms that occur far more frequently. In
addition, remember that I am not going into all the detailed
difficulties which come up in the course of resolutely hunting
down an historic interpretation of the symptom. I have no
intention of doing this, for though I want to keep nothing
from you, and so paint everything in its true colors, I still
do not wish to confuse and discourage you at the very outset
of our studies. It is true that we have only begun to under-
stand the interpretation of symptoms, but we wish to hold fast
to the results we have achieved, and struggle forward step by
step toward the mastery of the still unintelligible data. I there-
fore try to cheer you with the thought that a fundamenal dif-
ference between the two kinds of symptoms can scarcely be
assumed. Since the individual symptoms are so obviously de-
pendent upon the experience of the patient, there is a possibility
that the typical symptoms revert to an experience that is in
itself typical and common to all humanity. Other regularly
recurring features of neurosis, such as the repetition and doubt
of the compulsion neurosis, may be universal reactions which
are forced upon the patient by the very nature of the abnormal
change. In short, we have no reason to be prematurely dis-
couraged ; we shall see what our further results will yield.

"We meet a very similar difficulty in the theory of dreams,
which in our previous discussion of the dream I could not go
into. The manifest content of dreams is most profuse and indi-
vidually varied, and I have shown very explicitly what analy-
sis may glean from this content. But side by side with these
dreams there are others which may also be termed "typical"
and which occur similarly in all people. These are dreams of
identical content which offer the same difficulties for their in-
terpretation as the typical symptom. They are the dreams of
falling, flying, floating, swimming, of being hemmed in, of naked-
ness, and various other anxiety dreams that yield first one and
then another interpretation for the different patients, without
resulting in an explanation of their monotonous and typical

The Meaning of the Symptoms 235

recurrence. In the matter of these dreams also, we see a f unda«
mental groundwork enriched by individual additions. Probably
they as well can be fitted into the theory of dream life, built
up on tho basis of other dreams, — not however by straining the
point, but by the gradual broadening of our views.

EIGHTEENTH LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

Traumatic Fixation — The Unconscious

I SAID last time that we would not continue our work from
the standpoint of our doubts, but on the basis of our results.
"We have not even touched upon two of the most interest'
ing conclusions, derived equally from the same two sample
analyses.

In the first place, both patients give us the impression of being
fixated upon some very definite part of their past; they are
unable to free themselves therefrom, and have therefore come
to be completely estranged both from the present and the future.
They are now isolated in their ailment, just as in earlier days
people withdrew into monasteries there to carry along the
burden of their unhappy fates. In the case of the first patient,
it is her marriage with her husband, really abandoned, that
has determined her lot. By means of her symptoms she con-
tinues to deal with her husband; we have learned to under-
stand those voices which plead his case, which excuse him, exalt
him, lament his loss. Although she is young and might be
coveted by other men, she has seized upon all manner of real
and imaginary (magic) precautions to safeguard her virtue
for him. She will not appear before strangers, she neglects
her personal appearance ; furthermore, she cannot bring herself
to get up readily from any chair on which she has been seated.
She refuses to give her signature, and finally, since she is
motivated by her desire not to let anyone have anything of
hers, she is unable to give presents.

In the case of the second patient, the young girl, it is an
erotic attachment for her father that had established itself
in the years prior to puberty, which plays the same role in her
life. She also has arrived at the conclusion that she may not
marry so long as she is sick. We may suspect she became ill
in order that she need not marry, and that she might stay with
her father.

236

Traumatic Fixation — the Unconscious 237

It is impossible to evade the question of how, in what manner,
and driven by what motives, an individual may come by such a
remarkable and unprofitable attitude toward life. Granted
of course that this bearing is a general characteristic of neurosis,
and not a special peculiarity of these two cases, it is neverthe-
less a general trait in every neurosis of very great importance
in practice. Breuer's first hysterical patient was fixated in the
same manner upon the time when she nursed her very sick
father. In spite of her recuperation she has, in certain respects,
since that time, been done with life; although she remained
healthy and able, she did not enter on the normal life of women.
In every one of our patients we may see, by the use of analysis,
that in his disease-symptoms and their results he has gone back
again into a definite period of his past. In the majority of cases
he even chooses a very early phase of his life, sometime a child-
hood phase, indeed, laughable as it may appear, a phase of his
very suckling existence.

The closest analogies to these conditions of our neurotics are
furnished by the types of sickness which the war has just now
made so frequent — the so-called traumatic neuroses. Even
before the war there were such cases after railroad collisions and
other frightful occurrences which endangered life. The trau-
matic neuroses are, fundamentally, not the same as the spontane-
ous neuroses which we have been analysing and treating ; more-
over, we have not yet succeeded in bringing them within our
hypotheses, and I hope to be able to make clear to you wherein
this limitation lies. Yet on one point we may emphasize the
existence of a complete agreement between the two forms. The
traumatic neuroses show clear indications that they are grounded
in a fixation upon the moment of the traumatic disaster. In
their dreams these patients regularly live over the traumatic
situation ; where there are attacks of an hysterical type, which
permit of an analysis, we learn that the attack approximates
a complete transposition into this situation. It is as if these
patients had not yet gotten through with the traumatic situation,
as if it were actually before them as a task which was not yet
mastered. "We take this view of the matter in all seriousness;
it shows the way to an economic view of psychic occurrences.
For the expression "traumatic" has no other than an economic
meaning, and the disturbance permanently attacks the manage-

238 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ment of available energy. The traumatic experience is one
which, in a very short space of time, is able to increase the
strength of a given stimulus so enormously that its assimilation,
or rather its elaboration, can no longer be effected by normal
means.

This analogy tempts us to classify as traumatic those experi-
ences as well upon which our neurotics appear to be fixated.
Thus the possibility is held out to us of having found a simple
determining factor for the neurosis. It would then be com-
parable to a traumatic disease, and would arise from the inability
to meet an overpowering emotional experience. As a matter
of fact this reads like the first formula, by which Breuer and I,
in 1893-1895, accounted theoretically for our new observations.
A case such as that of our first patient, the young woman sepa-
rated from her husband, is very well explained by this con-
ception. She was not able to get over the unfeasibility of her
marriage, and has not been able to extricate herself from this
trauma. But our very next, that of the girl attached to her
father, shows us that the formula is not sufficiently compre-
hensive. On the one hand, such baby love of a little girl for her
father is so usual, and so often outlived that the designation
"traumatic" would carry no significance; on the other hand,
the history of the patient teaches us that this first erotic fixation
apparently passed by harmlessly at the time, and did not again
appear until many years later in the symptoms of the compulsion
neurosis. "We see complications before us, the existence of a
greater wealth of determining factors in the disease, but we also
suspect that the traumatic viewpoint will not have to be given
up as wrong ; rather it will have to subordinate itself when it is
fitted into a different context.

Here again we must leave the road we have been traveling.
For the time being, it leads us no further and we have many
other things to find out before we can go on again. But before
we leave this subject let us note that the fixation on some par-
ticular phase of the past has bearings which extend far beyond
the neurosis. Every neurosis contains such a fixation, but every
fixation does not lead to a neurosis, nor fall into the same class
with neuroses, nor even set the conditions for the development
of a neurosis. Mourning is a type of emotional fixation on a
theory of the past, which also brings with it the most complete

Traumatic Fixation — the Unconscious 239

alienation from the present and the future. But mourning is
sharply distinguished from neuroses that may be designated as
pathological forms of mourning.

It also happens that men are brought to complete deadlock by
a traumatic experience that has so completely shaken the founda-
tions on which they have built their lives that they give up all
interest in the present and future, and become completely ab-
sorbed in their retrospections; but these unhappy persons are
not necessarily neurotic. "We must not overestimate this one
feature as a diagnostic for a neurosis, no matter how invariable
and potent it may be.

Now let us turn to the second conclusion of our analysis, which
however we will hardly need to limit subsequently. We have
spoken of the senseless compulsive activities of our first patient,
and what intimate memories she disclosed as belonging to them ;
later we also investigated the connection between experience
and symptom and thus discovered the purpose hidden behind
the compulsive activity. But we have entirely omitted one fac-
tor that deserves our whole attention. As long as the patient
kept repeating the compulsive activity she did not know that
it was in any way related with the experience in question.
The connection between the two was hidden from her, she truth-
fully answered that she did not know what compelled her to do
this. Once, suddenly, under the influence of the cure, she hit
upon the connection and was able to tell it to us. But still she
did not know of the end in the service of which she performed
the compulsive activities, the purpose to correct a painful part
of the past and to place the husband, still loved by her, upon
a higher level. It took quite a long time and a great deal of
trouble for her to grasp and admit to me that such a motive
alone could have been the motive force of the compulsive
activity.

The relation between the scene after the unhappy bridal night
and the tender motive of the patient yield what we have called
the meaning of the compulsive activity. But both the
"whence" and the "why" remained hidden from her as long
as she continued to carry out the compulsive act. Psycho-
logical processes had been going on within her for which the
compulsive act found an expression. She could, in a normal
frame of mind, observe their effect, but none of the psycho-

240 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

logical antecedents of her action had come to the knowledge of
her consciousness. She had acted in just the same manner as a
hypnotized person to whom Bernheim had given the injunction
that five minutes after his awakening in the ward he was to
open an umbrella, and he had carried out this order on awaken-
ing, but could give no motive for his so doing. "We have exactly
such facts in mind when we speak of the existence of unconscious
psychological processes. Let anyone in the world account for
these facts in a more correct scientific manner, and we will gladly
withdraw completely our assumption of unconscious psycho-
logical processes. Until then, however, we shall continue to use
this assumption, and when anyone wants to bring forward the
objection that the unconscious can have no reality for science
and is a mere makeshift, (une fa$on de parler), we must simply
shrug our shoulders and reject his incomprehensible statement
resignedly. A strange unreality which can call out such real
and palpable effects as a compulsion symptom !

In our second patient we meet with fundamentally the same
thing. She had created a decree which she must follow: the
pillow must not touch the head of the bed; yet she does not
know how it originated, what its meaning is, nor to what motive
it owes the source of its power. It is immaterial whether she looks
upon it with indifference or struggles against it, storms against
it, determines to overcome it. She must nevertheless follow it
and carry out its ordinance, though she asks herself, in vain,
why. One must admit that these symptoms of compulsion
neurosis offer the clearest evidence for a special sphere of psych-
logical activity, cut off from the rest. What else could be back
of these images and impulses, which appear from one knows not
where, which have such great resistance to all the influences of
an otherwise normal psychic life ; which give the patient himself
the impression that here are super-powerful guests from another
world, immortals mixing in the affairs of mortals. Neurotic
symptoms lead unmistakably to a conviction of the existence of
an unconscious psychology, and for that very reason clinical
psychiatry, which recognizes only a conscious psychology, has
no explanation other than that they are present as indications
of a particular kind of degeneration. To be sure, the compulsive
images and impulses are not themselves unconscious — no more so
than the carrying out of the compulsive-acts escapes conscious

Traumatic Fixation — the Unconscious 241

observation. They would not have been symptoms had they not
penetrated through into consciousness. But their psychological
antecedents as disclosed by the analysis, the associations into
which we place them by our interpretations, are unconscious, at
least until we have made them known to the patient during the
course of the analysis.

Consider now, in addition, that the facts established in our
two cases are confirmed in all the symptoms of all neurotic
diseases, that always and everywhere the meaning of the symp-
toms is unknown to the sufferer, that analysis shows without
fail that these symptoms are derivatives of unconscious experi-
ences which can, under various favorable conditions, become
conscious. You will understand then that in psychoanalysis
we cannot do without this unconscious psyche, and are accus-
tomed to deal with it as with something tangible. Perhaps
you will also be able to understand how those who know the
unconscious only as an idea, who have never analyzed, never
interpreted dreams, or never translated neurotic symptoms into
meaning and purpose, are most ill-suited to pass an opinion
on this subject. Let us express our point of view once more.
Our ability to give meaning to neurotic symptoms by means of
analytic interpretation is an irrefutable indication of the exist-
ence of unconscious psychological processes— or, if you prefer,
an irrefutable proof of the necessity for their assumption.

But that is not all. Thanks to a second discovery of Breuer's,
for which he alone deserves credit and which appears to me to be
even more far-reaching, we are able to learn still more con-
cerning the relationship between the unconscious and the
neurotic symptom. Not alone is the meaning of the symptoms
invariably hidden in the unconscious ; but the very existence of
the symptom is conditioned by its relation to this unconscious.
You will soon understand me. With Breuer I maintain the
following: Every time we hit upon a symptom we may con-
clude that the patient cherishes definite unconscious experiences
which withhold the meaning of the symptoms. Vice versa, in
order that the symptoms may come into being, it is also essential
that this meaning be unconscious. Symptoms are not built up
out of conscious experiences ; as soon as the unconscious processes
in question become conscious, the symptom disappears. You
will at once recognize here the approach to our therapy, a way

242 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

to make symptoms disappear. It was by these means that
Breuer actually achieved the recovery of his patient, that is,
freed her of her symptoms; he found a technique for bringing
into her consciousness the unconscious experiences that carried
the meaning of her symptoms, and the symptoms disappeared.

This discovery of Breuer 's was not the result of a speculation,
but of a felicitous observation made possible by the cooperation
of the patient. You should therefore not trouble yourself to
find things you already know to which you can compare these
occurrences, rather you should recognize herein a new funda-
mental fact which in itself is capable of much wider application.
Toward this further end permit me to go over this ground
again in a different way.

The symptom develops as a substitution for something else
that has remained suppressed. Certain psychological experi-
ences should normally have become so far elaborated that con-
sciousness would have attained knowledge of them. This did
not take place, however, but out of these interrupted and dis-
turbed processes, imprisoned in the unconscious, the symptom
arose. That is to say, something in the nature of an interchange
had been effected; as often as therapeutic measures are suc-
cessful in again reversing this transposition, psychoanalytic
therapy solves the problem of the neurotic symptom.

Accordingly, Breuer 's discovery still remains the foundation
of psychoanalytic therapy. The assertion that the symptoms
disappear when one has made their unconscious connections
conscious, has been borne out by all subsequent research, al-
though the most extraordinary and unexpected complications
have been met with in its practical execution. Our therapy
does its work by means of changing the unconscious into the
conscious, and is effective only in so far as it has the opportunity
of bringing about this transformation.

Now we shall make a hasty digression so that you do not by
any chance imagine that this therapeutic work is too easy.
From all we have learned so far, the neurosis would appear as
the result of a sort of ignorance, the incognizance of psycho-
logical processes that we should know of. We would thus very
closely approximate the well-known Socratic teachings, accord-
ing to which evil itself is the result of ignorance. Now the
experienced physician will, as a rule, discover fairly readily

Traumatic Fixation — the Unconscious 243

what psychic impulses in his several patients have remained
unconscious. Accordingly it would seem easy for him to cure
the patient by imparting this knowledge to him and freeing him
of his ignorance. At least the part played by the unconscious
meaning of the symptoms could easily be discovered in this
manner, and it would only be in dealing with the relationship
of the symptoms to the experiences of the patient that the phy-
sician would be handicapped. In the face of these experiences,
of course, he is the ignorant one of the two, for he did not go
through these experiences, and must wait until the patient re-
members them and tells them to him. But in many cases this
difficulty could be readily overcome. One can question the
relatives of the patient concerning these experiences, and they
will often be in a position to point out those that carry any
traumatic significance; they may even be able to inform the
analyst of experiences of which the patient knows nothing be-
cause they occurred in the very early years of his life. By a
combination of such means it would seem that the pathogenic
ignorance of the patient could be cleared up in a short time and
without much trouble.

If only that were all! We have made discoveries for which
we were at first unprepared. Knowing and knowing is not
always the same thing ; there are various kinds of knowing that
are psychologically by no means comparable. "II y a fagots et
fagots,"1 as Moliere says. The knowledge of the physician is not
the same as that of the patient and cannot bring about the same
results. The physician can gain no results by transferring
his knowledge to the patient in so many words. This is perhaps
putting it incorrectly, for though the transference does not re-
sult in dissolving the symptoms, it does set the analysis in
motion, and calls out an energetic denial, the first sign usually
that this has taken place. The patient has learned something
that he did not know up to that time, the meaning of his symp-
toms, and yet he knows it as little as before. So we discover
there is more than one kind of ignorance. It will require a
deepening of our psychological insight to make clear to us
wherein the difference lies. But our assertion nevertheless re-
mains true that the symptoms disappear with the knowledge
of their meaning. For there is only one limiting condition;

aTliere are fagots and fagots.

244 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the knowledge must be founded on an inner change in the patient
which can be attained only through psychic labors directed
toward a definite end. We have here been confronted by prob-
lems which will soon lead us to the elaboration of a dynamics
of symptom formation.

I must stop to ask you whether this is not all too vague and
too complicated? Do I not confuse you by so often retracting
my words and restricting them, spinning out trains of thought
and then rejecting them? I should be sorry if this were the
case. However, I strongly dislike simplification at the expense
of truth, and am not averse to having you receive the full im-
pression of how many-sided and complicated the subject is. I
also think that there is no harm done if I say more on every
point than you can at the moment make use of. I know that
every hearer and reader arranges what is offered him in his own
thoughts, shortens it, simplifies it and extracts what he wishes
to retain. Within a given measure it is true that the more we
begin with the more we have left. Let me hope that, despite all
the by-play, you have clearly grasped the essential parts of my
remarks, those about the meaning of symptoms, about the un-
conscious, and the relation between the two. You probably have
also understood that our further efforts are to take two direc-
tions: first, the clinical problem — to discover how persons be-
come sick, how they later on accomplish a neurotic adaptation
toward life ; secondly, a problem of psychic dynamics, the evolu-
tion of the neurotic symptoms themselves from the prerequisites
of the neuroses. We will undoubtedly somewhere come on a
point of contact for these two problems.

I do not wish to go any further to-day, but since our time is not
yet up I intend to call your attention to another characteristic
of our two analyses, namely, the memory gaps or amnesias,
whose full appreciation will be possible later. You have heard
that it is possible to express the object of psychoanalytic treat-
ment in a formula: all pathogenic unconscious experience must
be transposed into consciousness. You will perhaps be surprised
to learn that this formula can be replaced by another: all the
memory gaps of the patient must be filled out, his amnesias
must be abolished. Practically this amounts to the same thing.
Therefore an important role in the development of his symp-
toms must be accredited to the amnesias of the neurotic. The

Traumatic Fixation — the Unconscious 245

analysis of our first case, however, will hardly justify this
valuation of the amnesia. The patient has not forgotten the
scene from which the compulsion act derives— on the contrary,
she remembers it vividly, nor is there any other forgotten factor
which comes into play in the development of these symptoms.
Less clear, but entirely analogous, is the situation in the case
of our second patient, the girl with the compulsive ritual. She,
too, has not really forgotten the behavior of her early years,
the fact that she insisted that the door between her bedroom and
that of her parents be kept open, and that she banished her
mother out of her place in her parents' bed. She recalls all this
very clearly, although hesitatingly and unwillingly. Only one
factor stands out strikingly in our first case, that though the
patient carries out her compulsive act innumerable times, she is
not once reminded of its similarity with the experience after
the bridal-night ; nor was this memory even suggested when by
direct questions she was asked to search for its motivation. The
same is true of the girl, for in her case not only her ritual, but
the situation which provoked it, is repeated identically night
after night. In neither case is there any actual amnesia, no
lapse of memory, but an association is broken off which should
have called out a reproduction, a revival in the memory. Such
a disturbance is enough to bring on a compulsion neurosis.
Hysteria, however, shows a different picture, for it is usually
characterized by most grandiose amnesias. As a rule, in the
analysis of each hysterical symptom, one is led back to a whole
chain of impressions which, upon their recovery, are expressly
designated as forgotten up to the moment. On the one hand this
chain extends back to the earliest years of life, so that the
hysterical amnesias may be regarded as the direct continuation
of the infantile amnesias, which hides the beginnings of our
psychic life from those of us who are normal. On the other
hand, we discover with surprise that the most recent experiences
of the patient are blurred by these losses of memory — that
especially the provocations which favored or brought on the
illness are, if not entirely wiped out by the amnesia, at least
partially obliterated. Without fail important details have dis-
appeared from the general picture of such a recent memory,
or are placed by false memories. Indeed it happens almost
regularly that just before the completion of an analysis, certain

246 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

memories of recent experiences suddenly come to light. They
had been held back all this time, and had left noticeable gaps
in the context.

We have pointed out that such a crippling of the ability to
recall is characteristic of hysteria. In hysteria symptomatic con-
ditions also arise (hysterical attacks) which need leave no trace
in the memory. If these things do not occur in compulsion-
neuroses, you are justified in concluding that these amnesias
exhibit psychological characteristics of the hysterical change,
and not a general trait of the neuroses. The significance of this
difference will be more closely limited by the following observa-
tions. We have combined two things as the meaning of a
symptom, its "whence," on the one hand, and its "whither"
or "why," on the other. By these we mean to indicate the
impressions and experiences whence the symptom arises, and the
purpose the symptom serves. The "whence" of a symptom is
traced back to impressions which have come from without, which
have therefore necessarily been conscious at some time, but
which may have sunk into the unconscious — that is, have been
forgotten. The "why" of the symptom, its tendency, is in
every case an endopsychic process, developed from within, which
may or may not have become conscious at first, but could just
as readily never have entered consciousness at all and have been
unconscious from its inception. It is, after all, not so very
significant that, as happens in the hysterias, amnesia has covered
over the "whence." of the symptom, the experience upon which
it is based; for it is the "why," the tendency of the symptom,
which establishes its dependence on the unconscious, and indeed
no less so in the compulsion neuroses than in hysteria. In both
cases the "why" may have been unconscious from the very
first.

By thus bringing into prominence the unconscious in psychic
life, we have raised the most evil spirits of criticism against
psychoanalysis. Do not be surprised at this, and do not believe
that the opposition is directed only against the difficulties offered
by the conception of the unconscious or against the relative in-
accessibility of the experiences which represent it. I believe
it comes from another source. Humanity, in the course of time,
has had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages
against its naive self-love. The first was when humanity dis-

Traumatic Fixation — the Unconscious 247

covered that our earth, was not the center of the universe, but
only a tiny speck in a world-system hardly conceivable in its
magnitude. This is associated in our minds with the name
"Copernicus," although Alexandrian science had taught much
the same thing. The second occurred when biological research
robbed man of his apparent superiority under special creation,
and rebuked him with his descent from the animal kingdom,
and his ineradicable animal nature. This re-valuation, under
the influence of Charles Darwin, Wallace and their predecessors,
was not accomplished without the most violent opposition of
their contemporaries. But the third and most irritating insult
is flung at the human mania of greatness by present-day psycho-
logical research, which wants to prove to the "I" that it is not
even master in its own home, but is dependent upon the most
scanty information concerning all that goes on unconsciously
in its psychic life. "We psychoanalysts were neither the first,
nor the only ones to announce this admonition to look within
ourselves. It appears that we are fated to represent it most
insistently and to confirm it by means of empirical data which
are of importance to every single person. This is the reason
for the widespread revolt against our science, the omission of
all considerations of academic urbanity, and emancipation of
the opposition from all restraints of impartial logic. "We were
compelled to disturb the peace of the world, in addition, in
another manner, of which you will soon come to know.

NINETEENTH LECTURE

GENERAL. THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

Resistance and Suppression

IN order to progress in our understanding of the neuroses,
we need new experiences and we are about to obtain two.
Both are very remarkable and were at the time of their
discovery, very surprising. You are, of course, prepared
for both from our discussions of the past semester.

In the first place: When we undertake to cure a patient,
to free him from the symptoms of his malady, he confronts us
with a vigorous, tenacious resistance that lasts during the whole
time of the treatment. That is so peculiar a fact that we cannot
expect much credence for it. The best thing is not to mention
this fact to the patient's relatives, for they never think of it
otherwise than as a subterfuge on our part in order to excuse
the length or the failure of our treatment. The patient, more-
over, produces all the phenomena of this resistance without even
recognizing it as such; it is always a great advance to have
brought him to the point of understanding this conception and
reckoning with it. Just consider, this patient suffers from his
symptoms and causes those about him to suffer with him. He
is willing, moreover, to take upon himself so many sacrifices
of time, money, effort and self-denial in order to be freed. And
yet he struggles, in the very interests of his malady, against
one who would help him. How improbable this assertion must
sound! And yet it is so, and if we are reproached with its
improbability, we need only answer that this fact is not without
its analogies. Whoever goes to a dentist with an unbearable
toothache may very well find himself thrusting away the
dentist's arm when the man makes for his sick tooth with a
pair of pincers.

The resistance which the patient shows is nighly varied, ex-
ceedingly subtle, often difficult to recognize, Protean-like in its
manifold changes of form. It means that the doctor must be-
come suspicious and be constantly on his guard against the

248

Resistance and Suppression 249

patient. In psychoanalytic therapy we make use, as you know,
of that technique which is already familiar to you from the
interpretation of dreams. "We tell the patient that without
further reflection he should put himself into a condition of calm
self-observation and that he must then communicate whatever
results this introspection gives him — feelings, thoughts, remi-
niscences, in the order in which they appear to his mind. At
the same time, we warn him expressly against yielding to any
motive which would induce him to choose or exclude any of his
thoughts as they arise, in whatever way the motive may be
couched and however it may excuse him from telling us the
thought: "that is too unpleasant," or "too indiscreet" for him
to tell ; or "it is too unimportant," or "it does not belong here,"
"it is nonsensical." We impress upon him the fact that he
must skim only across the surface of his consciousness and must
drop the last vestige of a critical attitude toward that which
he finds. "We finally inform him that the result of the treatment
and above all its length is dependent on the conscientiousness
with which he follows this basic rule of the analytic technique.
We know, in fact, from the technique of interpreting dreams,
that of all the random notions which may occur, those against
which such doubts are raised are invariably the ones to yield
the material which leads to the uncovering of the unconscious.

The first reaction we call out by laying down this basic tech-
nical rule is that the patient directs his entire resistance against
it. The patient tries in every way to escape its requirements.
First he will declare that he cannot think of anything, then, that
so much comes to his mind that it is impossible to seize on any-
thing definite. Then we discover with no slight displeasure that
he has yielded to this or that critical objection, for he betrays
himself by the long pauses which he allows to occur in his
speaking. He then confesses that he really cannot bring himself
to this, that he is ashamed to ; he prefers to let this motive get
the upper hand over his promise. He may say that he did
think of something but that it concerns someone else and is for
that reason exempt. Or he says that what he just thought of is
really too trivial, too stupid and too foolish. I surely could not
have meant that he should take such thoughts into account.
Thus it goes on, with untold variations, in the face of which we

250 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

continually reiterate that "telling everything" really means
telling everything.

One can scarcely find a patient who does not make the attempt
to reserve some province for himself against the intrusion of the
analysis. One patient, whom I must reckon among the most
highly intelligent, thus concealed an intimate love relation for
weeks; and when he was asked to explain this infringement of
our inviolable rule, he defended his action with the argument
that he considered this one thing was his private affair. Natu-
rally, analytic treatment cannot countenance such right of sanc-
tuary. One might as well try in a city like Vienna to allow
an exception to be made of great public squares like the Hohe
Markt or the Stephans Platz and say that no one should be
arrested in those places — and then attempt to round up some
particular wrong-doer. He will be found nowhere but in those
sanctuaries. I once brought myself around to permit such an
exception in the case of a man on whose capacity for work a
great deal depended, and who was bound by his oath of service,
which forbade him to tell anyone of certain things. To be sure,
he was satisfied with the results — but not I ; I resolved never to
repeat such an attempt under these conditions.

Compulsion neurotics are exceedingly adept at making this
technical rule almost useless by bringing to bear all their over-
conscientiousness and their doubts upon it. Patients suffering
from anxiety-hysteria sometimes succeed in reducing it to
absurdity by producing only notions so remote from the thing
sought for that analysis is quite unprofitable. But it is not my
intention to go into the way in which these technical difficulties
may be met. It is enough to know that finally, by means of
resolution and perseverance, we do succeed in wresting a certain
amount of obedience from the patient toward this basic rule of
the technique; the resistance then makes itself felt in other
ways. It appears in the form of an intellectual resistance, bat-
tles by means of arguments, and makes use of all difficulties and
improbabilities which a normal yet uninstructed thinking is
bound to find in the theory of analysis. Then we hear from
one voice alone the same criticisms and objections which thunder
about us in mighty chorus in the scientific literature. Therefore
the critics who shout to us from outside cannot tell us anything
new. It is a veritable tempest in a teapot. Still the patient

Resistance and Suppression 251

can be argued with, he is anxious to persuade us to instruct
him, to teach him, to lead him to the literature, so that he ma;?
continue working things out for himself. He is very ready to
become an adherent of psychoanalysis on condition that analysis
spare him personally. But we recognize this curiosity as a re-
sistance, as a diversion from our special objects, and we meet
it accordingly. In those patients who suffer from compulsion
neuroses, we must expect the resistance to display special tactics.
They frequently allow the analysis to take its way, so that it
may succeed in throwing more and more light on the problems of
the case, but we finally begin to wonder how it is that this clear-
ing up brings with it no practical progress, no diminution of
the symptom. Then we may discover that the resistance has
entrenched itself in the doubts of the compulsion neurosis itself
and in this position is able successfully to resist our efforts. The
patient has said something like this to himself: "This is all very
nice and interesting. And I would be glad to continue it. It
would affect my malady considerably if it were true. But I
don't believe that it is true and as long as I don't believe it,
it has nothing to do with my sickness." And so it may go on
for a long time until one finally has shaken this position itself;
it is then that the decisive battle takes place.

The intellectual resistances are not the worst, one can always
get ahead of them. But the patient can also put up resistances,
within the limits of the analysis, whose conquest belongs to the
most difficult tasks of our technique. Instead of recalling, he
actually goes again through the attitudes and emotions of his
previous life which, by means of the so-called "transference,"
can be utilized as resistances to the physician and the treat-
ment. If the patient is a man, he takes this material as a rule
from his relations to his father, in whose place he now puts the
physician, and in so doing constructs a resistance out of his
struggle for independence of person and opinion; out of his
ambition to equal or to excel his father ; out of his unwillingness
to assume the burden of gratitude a second time in his life.
For long times at a stretch one receives the impression that the
patient desires to put the physician in the wrong and to let
him feel his helplessness by triumphing over him, and that this
desire has completely replaced his better intention of making
an end to his sickness. Women are adepts at exploiting, for the

252 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

purposes of the resistance, a tender, erotically tinged transfer-
ence to the physician. "When this leaning attains a certain
intensity, all interest for the actual situation of the treatment
is lost, together with every sense of the responsibility which was
assumed by undertaking it. The never-failing jealousy as well
as the embitterment over the inevitable repudiation, however
gently effected, all must serve to spoil the personal understand-
ing between patient and physician and thus to throw out one of
the most powerful propelling forces of the analysis.

Kesistances of this sort must not be narrow-mindedly con-
demned. They contain so much of the most important material
of the patient 's past and reproduce it in such a convincing man-
ner, that they become of the greatest aid to the analysis, if a
skillful technique is able to turn them in the right direction.
It is only remarkable that this material is at firyt always in
the service of the resistance, for which it serves as a barrier
against the treatment. One can also say that here are traits
of character, adjustments of the ego which were mobilized in
order to defeat the attempted change. "We are thus able to learn
how these traits arose under the conditions of the neurosis, as a
reaction to its demands, and to see features more clearly in this
character which could otherwise not have shown up so clearly
or at least not to this extent, and which one may therefore
designate as latent. You must also not get the impression that
we see an unforeseen endangering of the analytic influence in
the appearance of these resistances. On the contrary, we know
that these resistances must come to light ; we are dissatisfied only
when we do not provoke them in their full strength and so make
them plain to the patient. Indeed, we at last understand that
overcoming these resistances is the essential achievement of
analysis and is that portion of the work which alone assures us
that we have accomplished something with the patient.

You must also take into account the fact that any accidental
occurrences which arise during the treatment will be made use
of by the patient as a disturbance — every diverting incident,
every statement about analysis from an inimical authority in
his circle, any chance illness or any organic affection which com-
plicates the neurosis ; indeed, he even uses every improvement of
his condition as a motive for abating his efforts. You will then
have gained an approximate, though still an incomplete picture

Resistance and Suppression 253

of the forms and devices of the resistance which must be met and
overcome in the course of every analysis. I have given this
point such detailed consideration because I am about to inform
you that our dynamic conception of the neurosis is based on
this experience with the resistance of neurotic patients against
the banishment of their symptoms. Breuer and I both originally
practiced psycho-therapy by means of hypnosis. Breuer 's first
patient was treated throughout under a condition of hypnotic
suggestibility, and I at first followed his example. I admit that
my work at that time progressed easily and agreeably and also
tohk much less time. But the results were capricious and not
permanent; therefore I finally gave up hypnotism. Then only
did I realize that no insight into the forces which produce these
diseases was possible as long as one used hypnotism. The con-
dition of hypnosis could prevent the physician from realizing the
existence of a resistance. Hypnosis drives back the resistance
and frees a certain field for the work of analysis, but similarly
to the doubt in the compulsion neurosis, in so doing it clogs the
boundaries of this field till they become impenetrable. That is
why I can say that true psychoanalysis began when the help
of hypnotism was renounced.

But if the establishment of the resistance thus becomes a
matter of such importance, then surely we must give our caution
full rein, and follow up any doubts as to whether we are not
all *,oo ready in our assumption of their existence. Perhaps
there really are neurotic cases in which associations appear
for \)ther reasons, perhaps the arguments against our hypothesis
realty deserve more consideration and we are unjustified in
conveniently rejecting all intellectual criticisms of analysis as a
resistance. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, but our judgment was
by no means readily arrived at. "We had opportunity to observe
every critical patient from the first sign of the resistance till
after its disappearance. In the course of the treatment, the
resistance is moreover constantly changing in intensity. It is
always on the increase as we approach a new theme, is strongest
at the height of its elaboration, and dies down again when this
theme has been abandoned. Furthermore, unless we have made
some unusual and awkward technical error, we never have to
deal with the full measure of resistance of which the patient
is capable. We could therefore convince ourselves that the

254 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

same man took up and discarded his critical attitude innumer-
able times in the course of the analysis. Whenever we are on the
point of bringing before his consciousness some piece of un«
conscious material which is especially painful to him, then
he is critical in the extreme. Even though he had previously
understood and accepted a great deal, nevertheless all record
of these gains seems now to have been wiped out. He may,
in his desire to resist at any cost, present a picture of veritable
emotional feeblemindedness. If one succeeds in helping him
to overcome this new resistance, then he regains his insight and
his understanding. Thus his criticism is not an independent
function to be respected as such ; it plays the role of handy-man
to his emotional attitude and is guided by his resistance. If
something displeases him, he can defend himself against it very
ingeniously and appear most critical. But if something strikes
his fancy, then he may show himself easily convinced. Perhaps
none of us are very different, and the patient under analysis
shows this dependence of the intellect on the emotional life so
plainly only because, under the analysis, he is so hard pressed.

In what way shall we now account for the observation that
the patient so energetically resists our attempts to rid him
of his symptoms and to make his psychic processes function in
a normal way? "We tell ourselves that we have here come up
against strong forces which oppose any change in the condition ;
furthermore, that these forces must be identical with those
which originally brought about the condition. Some process
must have been functional in the building up of these symptoms,
a process which we can now reconstruct by means of our experi-
ences in solving the meaning of the symptoms. We already
know from Breuer's observations that the existence of a symp-
tom presupposes that some psychic process was not carried to its
normal conclusion, so that it could not become conscious. The
symptom is the substitute for that which did not take place.
Now we know where the forces whose existence we suspect must
operate. Some violent antagonism must have been aroused to
prevent the psychic process in question from reaching conscious-
ness, and it therefore remained unconscious. As an unconscious
thought it had the power to create a symptom. The same strug-
gle during the analytic treatment opposes anew the efforts to
carry this unconscious thought over into consciousness. This

Resistance and Suppression 255

process we felt as a resistance. That pathogenic process which
is made evident to us through the resistance, we will name
repression.

We are now ready to obtain a more definite idea of this process
of repression. It is the preliminary condition for the formation
of symptoms; it is also a thing for which we have no parallel.
If we take as prototype an impulse, a psychological process
which is striving to convert itself into action, we know that it
may succumb before a rejection, which we call ''repudiation"
or "condemnation." In the course of this struggle, the energy
which the impulse had at its disposal was withdrawn from it,
it becomes powerless ; yet it may subsist in the form of a memory.
The whole process of decision occurs with the full knowledge
of the ego. The state of affairs is very different if we imagine
that this same impulse has been subjected to repression. In that
case, it would retain its energy and there would be no memory
of it left ; in addition, the process of repression would be carried
out without the knowledge of the ego. Through this comparison,
however, we have come no nearer understanding the nature of
repression.

I now go into the theoretical ideas which alone have shown
themselves useful in making the conception of repression more
definite. It is above all necessary that we progress from a
purely descriptive meaning of the word "unconscious" to its
more systematic meaning; that is, we come to a point where
we must call the consciousness or unconsciousness of a psychic
process only one of its attributes, an attribute which is, more-
over, not necessarily unequivocal. If such a process remained
unconscious, then this separation from consciousness is perhaps
only an indication of the fate to which it has submitted and
not this fate itself. To bring this home to us more vividly, let
us assume that every psychological process — with one exception,
which I will go into later — first exists in an unconscious state
or phase and only goes over from this into a conscious phase,
much as a photographic picture is first a negative and then
becomes a picture by being printed. But not every negative
need become a positive, and just as little is it necessary that
every unconscious psychological process should be changed into
a conscious one. We find it advantageous to express ourselves
as follows : Any particular process belongs in the first place to

256 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the psychological system of the unconscious; from this system
it can under certain conditions go over into the system of the
conscious. The crudest conception of these systems is the one
which is most convenient for us, namely, a representation in
space. We will compare the system of the unconscious to a
large ante-chamber, in which the psychic impulses rub elbows
With one another, as separate beings. There opens out of this
ante-chamber another, a smaller room, a sort of parlor, which con-
sciousness occupies. But on the threshold between the two rooms
there stands a watchman; he passes on the individual psychic
impulses, censors them, and will not let them into the parlor
if they do not meet with his approval. You see at once that it
makes little difference whether the watchman brushes a single
impulse away from the threshold, or whether he drives it out
again after it has already entered the parlor. It is a question
here only of the extent of his watchfulness, and the timeliness of
his judgment. Still working with this simile, we proceed to a
further elaboration of our nomenclature. The impulses in the
ante-chamber of the unconscious cannot be seen by the conscious,
which is in the other room; therefore for the time being they
must remain unconscious. When they have succeeded in press-
ing forward to the threshold, and have been sent back by the
Watchman, then they are unsuitable for consciousness and we
call them suppressed. Those impulses, however, which the
watchman has permitted to cross the threshold have not neces-
sarily become conscious; for this can happen only if they have
been successful in attracting to themselves the glance of the
conscious. We therefore justifiably call this second room the
system of the fore-conscious. In this way the process of becom-
ing conscious retains its purely descriptive sense. Suppression
then, for any individual impulse, consists in not being able to
get past the watchman from the system of the unconscious to
that of the fore-conscious. The watchman himself is long since
known to us ; we have met him as the resistance which opposed
us when we attempted to release the suppression through
analytic treatment.

Now I know you will say that these conceptions are as crude
as they are fantastic, and not at all permissible in a scientific
discussion. I know they are crude — indeed, we even know that
they are incorrect, and if we are not very much mistaken we

Resistance and Suppression 257

have a better substitute for them in readiness. Whether they
will continue then to appear so fantastic to you I do not know.
For the time being, they are useful conceptions, similar to the
manikin Ampere who swims in the stream of the electric cur-
rent. In so far as they are helpful in the understanding of
our observation, they are by no means to be despised. I should
like to assure you that these crude assumptions go far in ap-
proximating the actual situation — the two rooms, the watchman
on the threshold between the two, and consciousness at the end
of the second room in the role of an onlooker. I should also
like to hear you admit that our designations — unconscious, fore-
conscious, and conscious are much less likely to arouse prejudice,
and are easier to justify than others that have been used or
suggested — such as sub-conscious, inter-conscious, 'between-con-
scious, etc.

This becomes all the more important to me if you should warn
me that this arrangement of the psychic apparatus, such as I
have assumed in the explanation of neurotic symptoms, must
be generally applicable and must hold for normal functioning
as well. In that, of course, you are right. We cannot follow
this up at present, but our interest in the psychology of the
development of the symptom must be enormously increased if
through the study of pathological conditions we have the pros-
pect of finding a key to the normal psychic occurrences which
have been so well concealed.

You will probably recognize what it is that supports our
assumptions concerning these two systems and their relation
to consciousness. The watchman between the unconscious and
the fore-conscious is none other than the censor under whose
control we found the manifest dream to obtain its form. The
residue of the day's experiences, which we found were the
stimuli which set off the dream, are fore-conscious materials
which at night, during sleep, had come under the influence of
unconscious and suppressed wishes. Borne along by the energy
of the wish, these stimuli were able to build the latent dream.
(Jnder the control of the unconscious system this material was
worked over, went through an elaboration and displacement such
as the normal psychic life or, better said, the fore-conscious
system, either does not know at all or tolerates only exception-
ally. In our eyes the characteristics of each of the two systems

258 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

were betrayed by this difference in their functioning. The de-
pendent relation between the fore-conscious and the conscious
was to us only an indication that it must belong to one of the
two systems. The dream is by no means a pathological phe-
nomenon; it may appear in every healthy person under the
conditions of sleep. Any assumption as to the structure of the
psychic apparatus which covers the development of both the
dream and the neurotic symptom has also an undeniable claim
to be taken into consideration in any theory of normal psychic
life.

So much, then, for suppression. It is, however, only a pre-
requisite for the evolution of the symptom. "We know that the
symptom serves as a substitute for a process kept back by
suppression. Yet it is no simple matter to bridge this gap
between the suppression and the evolution of the substitute.
We have first to answer several questions on other aspects of
the problem concerning the suppression and its substantiation:
What kind of psychological stimuli are at the basis of the sup-
pression ; by what forces is it achieved ; for what motives ? On
these matters we have only one insight that we can go by. We
learned in the investigation of resistance that it grows out of
the forces of the "I," in other words from obvious and latent
traits of character. It must be from the same traits also that
suppression derived support ; at least they played a part in its
development. All further knowledge is still withheld from us.

A second observation, for which I have already prepared, will
help us further at this point. By means of analysis we can
assign one very general purpose to the neurotic symptom. This
is of course nothing new to you. I have already shown it to you
in the two cases of neuroses. But, to be sure, what is the
significance of two cases! You have the right to demand that
it be shown to you innumerable times. But I am unable to do
this. Here again your own experience must step in, or your
belief, which may in this matter rely upon the unanimous ac-
count of all psychoanalysts.

You will remember that in these two cases, whose symptoms
we subjected to searching investigation, the analysis intro-
duced us to the most intimate sexual life of these patients,
In the first case, moreover, we could identify with unusual clear-
ness the purpose or tendency of the symptoms under investiga-

Resistance and Suppression 259

tion. Perhaps in the second case it was slightly eovered by
another factor — one we will consider later. Now, the same thing
that we saw in these two examples we would see in all other
cases that we subjected to analysis. Each time, through analysis,
we would be introduced to the sexual wishes and experiences of
the patient, and every time we would have to conclude that their
symptoms served the same purpose. This purpose shows itself
to be the satisfaction of sexual wishes ; the symptoms serve as a
sexual satisfaction for the patient, they are a substitute for
such satisfactions as they miss in reality.

Recall the compulsive act of our first patient. The woman
longs for her intensely beloved husbe.nd, with whom she cannot
share her life because of his shortcoming and weaknesses. She
feels she must remain true to him, she can give his place to no
one else. Her compulsive symptom affords her that for which
she pines, ennobles her husband, denies and corrects his weak-
nesses,— above all, his impotence. This symptom is funda-
mentally a wish-fulfillment, exactly as is a dream ; moreover, it
is what a dream not always is, an erotic wish-fulfillment. In the
case of our second patient you can see that one of the com-
ponent purposes of her ceremonial was the prevention of the
intercourse of her parents or the hindrance of the creation of
a new child thereby. You have perhaps also guessed that essen-
tially she strove to put herself in the place of her mother. Here
again we find the removal of disturbances to sexual satisfaction
and the fulfillment of personal sexual wishes. "We shall soon
turn to the complications of whose existence we have given you
several indications.

I do not want to make reservations as to the universal appli-
cability of these declarations later on, and therefore I wish to
call to your attention the fact that everything that I say here
about suppression, symptom-development and symptom-interpre-
tation has been learned from three types of neuroses — anxiety-
hysteria, conversion-hysteria, and compulsion-neuroses — and for
the time being is relevant to these forms only. These three con-
ditions, which we are in the habit of combining into one group
under the name of "transference neuroses," also limit the field
open to psychoanalytic therapy. The other neuroses have not
been nearly so well studied by psychoanalysis, — in one group,
in fact, the impossibility of therapeutic influence has been the

260 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

reason for the neglect. But you must not forget that psycho-
analysis is still a very young science, that it demands much time
and care in preparation for it, that not long ago it was still in
the cradle, so to speak. Yet at all points we are about to pene-
trate into the understanding of those other conditions which are
not transference neuroses. I hope I shall still be able to speak
to you of the developments that our assumptions and results
have undergone by being correlated with this new material, and
to show you that these further studies have not led to contra-
dictions but rather to the production of still greater uniformity.
Granted that everything, then, that has been said here, holds
good for the three transference neuroses, allow me to add a
new bit of information to the evaluation of its symptoms. A
comparative investigation into the causes of the disease discloses
a result that may be confined into the formula: in some way
or other these patients fell ill through self-denial when reality
withheld from them the satisfaction of their sexual wishes.
You recognize how excellently well these two results are found
to agree. The symptoms must be understood, then, as a substi-
tute satisfaction for that which is missed in life.

To be sure, there are all kinds of objections possible to the
declaration that neurotic symptoms are substitutes for sexual
satisfaction. I shall still go into two of them today. If you
yourself have analytically examined a fairly large number of
neurotics you will perhaps gravely inform me that in one class
of cases this is not at all applicable, the symptoms appear rather
to have the opposite purpose, to exclude sexual satisfaction, or
discontinue it. I shall not deny the correctness of your interpre-
tation. The psychoanalytic content has a habit of being more
complicated than we should like to have it. Had it been so
simple, perhaps we should have had no need for psychoanalysis
to bring it to light. As a matter of fact, some of the traits of
the ceremonial of our second patient may be recognized as of
this ascetic nature, inimical to sexual satisfaction ; for example,
the fact that she removes the clocks, which have the magic quali-
ties of preventing nightly erections, or that she tries to prevent
the falling and breaking of vessels, which symbolizes a protection
of her virginity. In other cases of bed-ceremonials which I was
able .to analyze, this negative character was far more evident ;
the ceremonial might consist throughout of protective regula-

Resistance and Suppression 261

tions against sexual recollections and temptations. On the other
hand, we have often discovered in psychoanalysis that opposites
do not mean contradictions. We might extend our assertion and
say the symptoms purpose either a sexual satisfaction or a
guard against it; that in hysteria the positive wish-fulfillment
takes precedence, while in the compulsion neuroses the negative,
ascetic characteristics have the ascendancy. We have not yet
been able to speak of that aspect of the mechanism of the symp-
toms, their two-sidedness, or polarity, which enables them to
serve this double purpose, both the sexual satisfaction and its
opposite. The symptoms are, as we shall see, compromise re-
sults, arising from the integration of two opposed tendencies;
they represent not only the suppressed force but also the sup-
pressing factor, which was originally potent in bringing about
the negation. The result may then favor either one side or the
other, but seldom is one of the influences entirely lacking. In
cases of hysteria, the meeting of the two purposes in the same
symptom is most often achieved. In compulsion-neuroses, the
two parts often become distinct ; the symptom then has a double
meaning, it consists of two actions, one following the other, one
releasing the other. It will not be so easy to put aside a further
misgiving. If you should look over a large number of symptom-
interpretations, you would probably judge offhand that the con-
ception of a sexual substitute-satsifaction has been stretched to
its utmost limits in these cases. You will not hesitate to
emphasize that these symptoms offer nothing in the way of actual
satisfaction, that often enough they are limited to giving fresh
life to sensations or phantasies from some sexual complex.
Further, you will declare that the apparent sexual satisfaction
so often shows a childish and unworthy character, perhaps ap-
proximates an act of onanism, or is reminiscent of filthy naughti-
ness, habits that are already forbidden and broken in childhood.
Finally, you will express your surprise that one should designate
as a sexual satisfaction appetites which can only be described as
horrible or ghastly, eveij unnatural. As to these last points, we
shall come to no agreement until we have submitted man's sexual
life to a thorough investigation, and thus ascertained what one
is justified in calling sexual.

TWENTIETH LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

The Sexual Life of Man

ONE might think we could take for granted what we are
to understand by the term "sexual." Of course, the
sexual is the indecent, which we must not talk about.
I have been told that the pupils of a famous psychi-
atrist once took the trouble to convince their teacher that the
symptoms of hysteria very frequently represent sexual matters.
With this intention they took him to the bedside of a woman
suffering from hysteria, whose attacks were unmistakable imita-
tions of the act of delivery. He, however, threw aside their
suggestion with the remark, "a delivery is nothing sexual."
Assuredly, a delivery need not under all circumstances be
indecent.

I see that you take it amiss that I jest about such serious
matters. But this is not altogether a jest. In all seriousness, it
is not altogether easy to define the concept "sexual." Perhaps
the only accurate definition would be everything that is con-
nected with the difference between the two sexes; but this you
may find too general and too colorless. If you emphasize the
sexual act as the central factor, you might say that everything
is sexual which seeks to obtain sensual excitement from the body
and especially from the sexual organs of the opposite sex, and
which aims toward the union of the genitals and the performance
of the sexual act. But then you are really very close to the
comparison of sexual and indecent, and the act of delivery is
not sexual. But if you think of the function of reproduction
as the nucleus of sexuality you are in danger of excluding a
number of things that do not aim at reproduction but are cer-
tainly sexual, such as onanism or even kissing. But we are
prepared to realize that attempts at definition always lead to
difficulties; let us give up the attempt to achieve the unusual
in our particular case. We may suspect that in the development
of the concept "sexual" something occurred which resulted in

262

The Sexual Life of Man 263

a false disguise. On the whole, we are quite well oriented as
to what people call sexual.

The inclusion of the following factors in our concept "sexual"
amply suffices for all practical purposes in ordinary life: the
contrast between the sexes, the attainment of sexual excitement,
the function of reproduction, the characteristic of an indecency
that must be kept concealed. But this is no longer satisfactory
to science. For through careful examinations, rendered possible
only by the sacrifices and the unselfishness of the subjects, we
have come in contact with groups of human beings whose sexual
life deviates strikingly from the average. One group among
them, the ' ' perverse, ' ' have, as it were, crossed off the difference
between the sexes from their program. Only the same sex can
arouse their sexual desires ; the other sex, even the sexual parts,
no longer serve as objects for their sexual desires, and in extreme
cases, become a subject for disgust. They have to that extent,
of course, foregone any participation in reproduction. We call
such persons homosexual or inverted. Often, though not always,
they are men and women of high physical, intellectual and ethical
development, who are affected only with this one portentous
abnormality. Through their scientific leaders they proclaim
themselves to be a special species of mankind, "a third sex,"
which shares equal rights with the two other sexes. Perhaps
we shall have occasion to examine their claims critically. Of
course they are not, as they would like to claim, the "elect" of
humanity, but comprise just as many worthless second-rate indi-
viduals as those who possess a different sexual organization.

At any rate, this type among the perverse seek to achieve the
same ends with the object of their desires as do normal people.
But in the same group there exists a long succession of abnormal
individuals whose sexual activities are more and more alien to
what seems desirable to the sensible person. In their manifold
strangeness they seem comparable only to the grotesque freaks
that P. Breughel painted as the temptation of Saint Anthony,
or the forgotten gods and believers that G. Flaubert pictures in
the long procession that passes before his pious penitent. This
ill-assorted array fairly clamors for orderly classification if it is
not to bewilder our senses. We first divide them, on the one
hand, into those whose sexual object has changed, as is the case
with homosexualists, and, on the other, those whose sexual aim

V

264 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

has changed. Those of the first group have dispensed with the
mutual union of the genital organs, and have, as one of the
partners of the act, replaced the genitals by another organ or
part of the body; they have thus overcome both the short-
comings of organic structure and the usual disgust involved.
There are others of this group who still retain the genitals as
their object, but not by virtue of their sexual function; they
participate for anatomic reasons or rather by reason of their
proximity. By means of these individuals we realize that the
functions of excretion, which in the education of the child are
hushed away as indecent, still remain capable of drawing com-
plete sexual interest on themselves. There are still others who
have relinquished the genitals entirely as an objective, have
raised another part of the body to serve as the goal of their
desire; the woman's breast, the foot, the tress of hair. There
are also the fetishists, to whom the body part means nothing,
who are gratified by a garment, a piece of white linen, a shoe.
And finally there are persons who seek the whole object but
with certain peculiar or horrible demands : even those who covet
a defenseless corpse for instance, which they themselves must
criminally compel to satisfy their desire. But enough of these
horrors.

Foremost in the second grouping are those perverted ones
who have placed as the end of their sexual desire performances
normally introductory or preparatory to it. They satisfy their
desire by their eyes and hands. They watch or attempt to watch
the other individual in his most intimate doings, or uncover
those portions of their own bodies which they should conceal in
the vague expectation of being rewarded by a similar procedure
on the other person's part. Here also belong the enigmatic
sadists, whose affectionate strivings know no other goal than to
cause their object pain and agony, varying all the way from
humiliating suggestions to the harshest physical ill-treatment.
As if to balance the scale, we have on the other hand the
masochists, whose sole satisfaction consists in suffering every
variety of humiliation and torture, symbolic and real, at the
hands of the beloved one. There are still others who combine
and confuse a number of these abnormal conditions. Moreover,
in both these groups there are those who seek sexual satisfaction
5n reality, and others who are content merely to imagine such

The Sexual Life of Man 265

gratification, who need no actual object at all, but can supplant
it by their own fantastic creations.

There can be not the least doubt that the sexual activities of
these individuals are actually found in the absurdities, caprices
and horrors that we have examined. Not only do they them-
selves conceive them as adequate substitutes, but we must recog-
nize that they take the same place in their lives that normal sex
gratification occupies in ours, and for which they bring the
same sacrifices, often incommensurate with their ends. It is
perfectly possible to trace along broad lines as well as in detail
in what way these abnormalities follow the normal procedure
and how they diverge from it. You will also find the character-
istic of indecency which belongs to the sexual act in these
vagaries, only that it is therein magnified to the disreputable.

Ladies and gentlemen, what attitude are we to assume to these
unusual varieties of sex gratification ? Nothing at all is achieved
by the mere expression of indignation and personal disgust and
by the assurance that we do not share these lusts. That is not
our concern. We have here a field of observation like any other.
Moreover, the evasion that these persons are merely rarities, curi-
osities, is easily refuted. On the contrary, we are dealing with
very frequent and widespread phenomena. If, however, we are
told that we must not permit them to influence our views on
sexual life, since they are all aberrations of the sexual instinct,
we must meet this with a serious answer. If we fail to under-
stand these abnormal manifestations of sexuality and are unable
to relate them to the normal sexual life, then we cannot under-
stand normal sexuality. It is, in short, our unavoidable task to
account theoretically for all the potentialities of the perversions
we have gone over and to explain their relation to the so-called
normal sexuality.

A penetrating insight due to Ivan Bloch and two new experi-
mental results will help us in this task. Bloch takes exception
to the point of view which sees in a perversion a "sign of
degeneration"; he proves that such deviations from the aim
of the sexual instinct, such loose relations to the object of
sexuality, have occurred at all times, among the most primitive
and the most highly civilized peoples, and have occasionally
achieved toleration and general recognition. The two experi-
mental results were obtained in the course of psychoanalytic in-

266 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

vestigations of neurotics ; they will undoubtedly exert a decided
influence on our conceptions of sexual perversion.

We have stated that the neurotic symptoms are substitutions
for sexual satisfactions, and I have given you to understand
that the proof of this assertion by means of the analysis of
symptoms encounters many difficulties. For this statement is
only justifiable if, under the term "sexual satisfactions," we
include the so-called perverse sexual ends, since with surprising
frequency we find symptoms which can be interpreted only in
the light of their activity. The claim of rareness made by the
homosexualists or the inverted immediately collapses when we
learn that in the case of no single neurotic do we fail to obtain
evidence of homosexual tendencies, and that in a considerable
number of symptoms we find the expression of this latent in-
version. Those who call themselves homosexualists are the con-
scious and manifest inverts, but their number is as nothing
before the latent homosexualists. We are forced to regard the
desire for an. object of one's own sex as a universal aberration
of erotic life and to cede increasing importance to it. Of course
the differences between manifest homosexuality and the normal
attitude are not thus erased ; their practical importance persists,
but their theoretic value is greatly decreased. Paranoia, a dis-
turbance which cannot be counted among the transference-
neuroses, must in fact be assumed as arising regularly from the
attempt to ward off powerful homosexual tendencies. Perhaps
you will recall that one of our patients under her compulsive
symptoms acted the part of a man, namely that of her own
estranged husband; the production of such symptoms, imper-
sonating the actions of men, is very common to neurotic women.
Though this cannot be ascribed directly to homosexuality, it is
certainly concerned with its prerequisites.

You are probably acquainted with the fact that the neurosis
of hysteria may manifest its symptoms in all organic systems
and may therefore disturb all functions. Analysis shows that
in these symptoms there are expressed all those tendencies
termed perverse, which seek to represent the genitals through
other organs. These organs behave as substitute genitals;
through the study of hysteric symptoms we have come to the
conclusion that aside from their functional activities, the organs
of the body have a sexual significance, and that the performancs

The Sexual Life of Man 267

of their functions is disturbed if the sexual factor claims too
much attention. Countless sensations and innervations, which
appear as symptoms of hysteria, in organs apparently not con-
cerned with sexuality, are thus discovered as bound up with the
fulfillment of perverse sexual desires through the transference
of sex instincts to other organs. These symptoms bring home
to us the extent to which the organs used in the consumption
of food and in excretion may become the bearers of sexual
excitement. We see repeated here the same picture which the
perversions have openly and unmistakably lain before us; in
hysteria, however, we must make the detour of interpreting
symptoms, and in this case the perverse sexual tendencies must
be ascribed not to the conscious but to the unconscious life of
the individual.

Among the many symptoms manifested in compulsion neurosis,
the most important are those produced by too powerful saddistic
tendencies, i.e., sexual tendencies with perverted aim. These
symptoms, in accordance with the structure of compulsion neu-
rosis, serve primarily as a rejection of these desires, or they
express a struggle between satisfaction and rejection. In this
struggle, the satisfaction is never excessively curtailed; it
achieves its results in the patient's behavior in a roundabout
way, by preference turning against his own person in self-
inflicted torture. Other forms of neurosis, characterized by
intensive worry, are the expression of an exaggerated sexualiza-
tion of acts that are ordinarily only preparatory to sexual satis-
factions; such are the desires to see, to touch, to investigate.
Here is thus explained the great importance of the fear of
contact and also of the compulsion to wash. An unbelievably
large portion of compulsion acts may, in the form of disguised
repetitions and modifications, be traced back to onanism, ad-
mittedly the only uniform action which accompanies the most
varied flights of the sexual imagination.

It would cost me very little effort to interweave far more
closely the relation between perversion and neurosis, but I be-
lieve that what I have said is sufficient for our purposes. We
must avoid the error of overestimating the frequency and in-
tensity of perverse inclinations in the light of these interpreta-
tions of symptoms. You have heard that a neurosis may
develop from the denial of normal sexual satisfactions. Through

268 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

this actual denial the need is forced into the abnormal paths
of sex excitement. You will later obtain a better insight into
the way this happens. You certainly understand that through
such "collateral" hindrance, the perverse tendencies must be-
come more powerful than they would have been if no actual
obstacle had been put in the way of a normal sexual satisfaction.
As a matter of fact, a similar influence may be recognized in
manifest perversions. In many cases, they are provoked or
motivated by the fact that too great difficulties stand in the way
of normal sexual satisfactions, owing to temporary circumstances
or to the permanent institutions of society. In other cases, to be
sure, the perverse tendencies are entirely independent of such
conditions; they are, as it were, the normal kind of sexual life
for the individual in question.

Perhaps you are momentarily under the impression that we
have confused rather than clarified the relation between normal
and perverse sexuality. But keep in mind this consideration. If
it is true that a hindrance or withholding of normal sexual satis-
faction will bring out perverse tendencies in persons who have
not previously shown them, we must assume that these persons
must have harbored tendencies akin to perversities — or, if you
will, perversities in latent form. This brings us to the second
experimental conclusion of which I spoke, namely, that psycho-
analytic investigation found it necessary to concern itself with
the sexual life of the child, since, in the analysis of symptoms,
reminiscences and ideas reverted to the early years of childhood.
Whatever we revealed in this manner was corroborated point
by point through the direct observation of children. The result
was the recognition that all inclinations to perversion have their
origin in childhood, that children have tendencies toward them
all and practice them in a measure corresponding to their im-
maturity. Perverse sexuality, in brief, is nothing more than
magnified infantile sexuality divided into its separate tendencies.

Now you will certainly see these perversions in another light
and no longer ignore their relation to the sexual life of man,
at the cost, I do not doubt, of surprises and incongruities painful
to your emotions. At first you will undoubtedly be disposed to
deny everything — the fact that children have something which
may be termed sexual life, the truth of our observations and the
justification of our claim to see in the behavior of children any

The Sexual Life of Man 269

relation to what is condemned in later years as perversity.
Permit me first to explain to you the cause of your reluctance
and then to present to you the sum of our observations. It is
biologically improbable, even absurd, to assume that children
have no sexual life — sexual excitements, desires, and some sort
of satisfaction — but that they develop it suddenly between the
ages of twelve and fourteen. This would be just as improbable
from the viewpoint of biology as to say that they were not born
with genitals but developed them only in the period of puberty.
The new factor which becomes active in them at the time is the
function of reproduction, which avails itself for its own purposes
of all the physical and psychic material already present. You
commit the error of confusing sexuality with reproduction and
thereby block the road to the understanding of sexuality, and
of perversions and neuroses as well. This error is a prejudice.
Oddly enough its source is the fact that you yourselves were
children, and as children succumbed to the influence of educa-
tion. One of the most important educational tasks which society
must assume is the control, the restriction of the sexual instinct
when it breaks forth as an impulse toward reproduction ; it must
be subdued to an individual will that is identical with the
mandates of society. In its own interests, accordingly, society
would postpone full development until the child has reached a
certain stage of intellectual maturity, for education practically
ceases with the complete emergence of the sexual impulse. Other-
wise the instinct would burst all bounds and the work of culture,
achieved with such difficulty, would be shattered. The task of
restraining this sexuality is never easy; it succeeds here too
poorly and there too well. The motivating force of human
society is fundamentally economic; since there is not sufficient
nourishment to support its members without work on their part,
the number of these members must be limited and their energies
diverted from sexual activity to labor. Here, again, we have
the eternal struggle for life that has persisted from prehistoric
times to the present.

Experience must have shown educators that the task of guid-
ing the sexual will of the new generation can be solved only by
influencing the early sexual life of the child, the period prepara-
tory to puberty, not by awaiting the storm of puberty. With
this intention almost all infantile sex activities are forbidden to

270 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the child or made distasteful to him; the ideal goal has been
to render the life of the child asexual. In the course of time
it has really come to be considered asexual, and this point of
view has actually been proclaimed by science. In order not to
contradict our belief and intentions, we ignore the sexual activity
of the child — no slight thing, at that — or are content to inter-
pret it differently. The child is supposed to be pure and inno-
ce^t, and whoever says otherwise may be condemned as a shame-
less blasphemer of the tender and sacred feelings of humanity.

The children are the only ones who do not join in carrying
out these conventions, who assert their animal rights, who prove
again and again that the road to purity is still before them. It
is strange that those who deny the sexuality of children, do
not therefore slacken in their educational efforts but rather pun-
ish severely the manifestations of the very thing they maintain
does not exist, and call it "childish naughtiness." Theoretically
it is highly interesting to observe that the period of life which
offers most striking evidence against the biased conception of
asexual childhood, is the time up to five or six years of age ; after
that everything is enveloped by a veil of amnesia, which is rent
apart only by thorough scientific investigation; it may pre-
viously have given way partially in certain forms of dreams.

Now I shall present to you what is most easily recognizable
in the sexual life of the child. At first, for the sake of con-
venience let me explain to you the conception of the libido.
Libido, analogous to hunger, is the force through which the in-
stinct, here the sex instinct (as in the case of hunger it is the
instinct to eat) expresses itself. Other conceptions, such as
sexual excitement and satisfaction, require no elucidation. You
will easily see that interpretation plays the greatest part in
disclosing the sexuality of the suckling ; in fact you will probably
cite this as an objection. These interpretations proceed from a
foundation of analytic investigation that trace backwards from
a given symptom. The suckling reveals the first sexual impulses
in connection with other functions necessary for life. His chief
interest, as you know, is directed toward the taking in of food ;
when it has fallen asleep at its mother's breast, fully satisfied,
it bears the expression of blissful content that will come back
again in later life after the experience of the sexual orgasm.
That of course would be too slight evidence to form the basis

The Sexual Life of Man 271

of a conclusion. But we observe that the suckling wishes to
repeat the act of taking in food without actually demanding
more food ; he is therefore no longer urged by hunger. We say
he is sucking, and the fact that after this he again falls asleep
with a blissful expression shows us that the act of sucking in
itself has yielded him satisfaction. As you know, he speedily
arranges matters so that he cannot fall asleep without sucking.
Dr. Lindner, an old podiatrist in Budapest, was the first one to
ascertain the sexual nature of this procedure. Persons attending
to the child, who surely make no pretensions to a theoretic
attitude, seem to judge sucking in a similar manner. They do
not doubt that it serves a pleasurable satisfaction, term it
naughty, and force the child to relinquish it against his will,
and if he will not do so of his own accord, through painful
measures. And so we learn that the suckling performs actions
that have no object save the obtaining of a sensual gratification.
We believe that this gratification is first experienced during the
taking in of food, but that he speedily learns to separate it from
this condition. The gratification can only be attributed to the
excitation of the mouth and lips, hence we call these parts of the
body erogenous zones and the pleasure derived from sucking,
sexual. Probably we shall have to discuss the justification of
this name.

If the suckling could express himself, he would probably
recognize the act of sucking at his mother's breast as the most
important thing in life. He is not so far wrong, for in this one
act he satisfies two great needs of life. With no small degree
of surprise we learn through psychoanalysis how much of the
physical significance of this act is retained through life. The
sucking at the mother's breast becomes the term of departure
for all of sexual life, the unattained ideal of later sex gratifica-
tion, to which the imagination often reverts in times of need.
The mother's breast is the first object for the sexual instinct;
I can scarcely bring home to you how significant this object is
for centering on the sexual object in later life, what profound
influence it exerts upon the most remote domains of psychic life
through evolution and substitution. The suckling, however, soon
relinquishes it and fills its place by a part of his own body.
The child sucks his thumb or his own tongue. Thereby he ren-
ders himself independent of the consent of the outer world in

272 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

obtaining his sensual satisfactions, and moreover increases the
excitement by including a second zone of his body. The
erogenous zones are not equally satisfactory ; it is therefore an
important experience when, as Dr. Lindner puts it, the child
while touching his own body discovers the especially excitable
genitals, and so finds the way from sucking to onanism.

Through the evaluation of sucking we become acquainted with
two decisive characteristics of infantile sexuality. It arises in
connection with the satisfaction of great organic needs and be-
haves auto-erotically, that is to say, it seeks and finds it objects
on its own body. What is most clearly discernible during the
taking in of food is partially repeated during excretion. We
conclude that the nursling experiences pleasure during the ex-
cretion of urine and the contents of the intestine and that he
soon strives to arrange these acts in a way to secure the greatest
possible amount of satisfaction by the corresponding excitement
of the erogenous membrane zones. Lou Andreas, with her deli-
cate perceptions, has shown how at this point the outer world
first intervenes as a hindrance, hostile to the child's desire for
satisfaction — the first vague suggestion of outer and inner con-
flicts. He may not let his excretions pass from him at a moment
agreeable to him, but only when other persons set the time. To
induce him to renounce these sources of satisfaction, everything
relating to these functions is declared indecent and must be
concealed. Here, for the first time, he is to exchange pleasure
for social dignity. His own relation to his excretions is origi-
nally quite different. He experiences no disgust toward his
faeces, values them as a part of his body from which he does not
part lightly, for he uses them as the first ' ' present ' ' he can give
to persons he esteems particularly. Even after education has
succeeded in alienating him from these tendencies, he transfers
the evaluation of the faeces to the "present" and to "money."
On the other hand, he appears to regard his achievements in
urination with especial pride.

I know that you have been wanting to interrupt me for a
long time and to cry : ' ' Enough of these monstrosities ! Excre-
tion a source of sexual gratification that even the suckling
exploits! Faeces a valuable substance! The anus a sort of
genital ! We do not believe it, but we understand why children 's
physicians and pedagogues have decidedly rejected psycho-

The Sexual Life of Man 273

analysis and its results." No, you have merely forgotten that
it was my intention to present to you infantile sexuality in con-
nection with the facts of sexual perversion. Why should you
not know that in the case of many grown-ups, homosexuals as
well as heterosexuals, the locus of intercourse is transferred from
the normal to a more remote portion of the body. And that
there are many individuals who confess to a pleasurable sensa-
tion of no slight degree in the emptying of the bowels during
their entire lives ? Children themselves will confirm their inter-
est in the act of defecation and the pleasure in watching the
defecation of another, when they are a few years older and
capable of giving expression to their feelings. Of course, if
these children have previously been systematically intimidated,
they will understand all too well the wisdom of preserving
silence on the subject. As for the other things that you do not
wish to believe, let me refer you to the results of analysis and
the direct observation of children, and you will realize that it is
difficult not to see these things or to see them in a different light.
I do not even object to making the relation between child-
sexuality and sexual perversion quite obvious to you. It is
really only natural ; if the child has sexual life at all, it must
necessarily be perverse, because aside from a few hazy illusions,
the child does not know how sexuality gives rise to reproduction.
The common characteristic of all perversions, on the other hand,
is that they have abandoned reproduction as their aim. We term
sexual activity perverse when it has renounced the aim of
reproduction and follows the pursuit of pleasure as an independ-
ent goal. And so you realize that the turning point in the
development of sexual life lies in its subjugation to the purpose
of reproduction. Everything this side of the turning point,
everything that has given up this purpose and serves the pursuit
cf pleasure alone, must carry the term "perverse" and as such
be regarded with contempt.

Permit me, therefore, to continue with my brief presentation
of infantile sexuality. What I have told you about two organic
systems I could supplement by a discussion of all the others.
The sexual life of the child exhausts itself in the exercise of a
series of partial instincts which seek, independently of one
another, to gain satisfaction from his own body or from an
external object. Among these organs the genitals speedily pre-

274 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

dominate. There are persons who continue the pursuit of satis-
faction by means of their own genitals, without the aid of
another genital or object, uninterruptedly from the onanism of
the suckling to the onanism of necessity which arises in puberty,
and even indefinitely beyond that. The theme of onanism alone
would occupy us for a long period of time; it offers material
for diverse observations.

In spite of my inclination to shorten the theme, I must tell
you something about the sexual curiosity of children. It is
most characteristic for child sexuality and significant for the
study of neurotic symptoms. The sexual curiosity of children
begins very early, sometimes before the third year. It is not
connected with the differences of sexes, which means nothing
to the child, since the boy, at any rate, ascribes the same male
genital to both sexes. When the boy first discovers the primary
sexual structure of the female, he tries at first to deny the
evidence of his senses, for he cannot conceive a human being
who lacks the part of his body that is of such importance to
him. Later he is terrified at the possibility revealed to him and
he feels the influence of all the former threats, occasioned by
his intensive preoccupation with his little organ. He becomes
subject to the domination of the castration complex, the forma-
tion of which plays an important part in the development of
his character, provided he remains healthy; of his neurosis, if
he becomes diseased; of his resistance, if he is treated analyti-
cally. "We know that the little girl feels injured on account of
her lack of a large, visible penis, envies the boy his possession,
and primarily from this motive desires to be a man. This wish
manifests itself subsequently in neurosis, arising from some
failure in her role as a woman. During childhood, the clitoris
of the girl is the equivalent of the penis ; it is especially excitable,
the zone where auto-erotic satisfaction is achieved. In the tran-
sition to womanhood it is most important that the sensations of
the clitoris are completely transferred at the right time to the
entrance of the vagina. In cases of so-called sexual anesthesia
of women the clitoris has obstinately retained its excitability.

The sexual interest of children generally turns first to the
mystery of birth — the same problem that is the basis of the
questions asked by the sphinx of Thebes. This curiosity is for
the most part aroused by the selfish fear of the arrival of a

The Sexual Life of Man 275

new child. The answer which the nursery has ready for the
child, that the stork brings children, is doubted far more fre-
quently than we imagine, even by very young children. The
feeling that he has been cheated out of the truth by grown-ups,
contributes greatly to the child's sense of solitude and to his
independent development. But the child is not capable of solv-
ing this problem unaided. His undeveloped sexual constitution
restricts his ability to understand. At first he assumes that
children are produced by a special substance in one's food and
does not know that only women can bear children. Later he
learns of this limitation and relinquishes the derivation of chil-
dren from food — a supposition retained in the fairy-tale. The
growing child soon notices that the father plays some part in
reproduction, but what it is he cannot guess. If, by chance,
he is witness of a sexual act, he sees in it an attempt to sub-
jugate, a scuffle, the saddistic miscomprehension of coitus; he
does not however relate this act immediately to the evolution
of the child. When he discovers traces of blood on the bedsheets
or on the clothing of his mother, he considers them the proof of
an injury inflicted by the father. During the latter part of
childhood, he imagines that the sexual organ of the man plays
an important part in the evolution of children, but can ascribe
only the function of urination to that part of his body.

From the very outset children unite in believing that the birth
of the child takes place through the anus ; that the child there-
fore appears as a ball of faeces. After anal interests have been
proven valueless, he abandons this theory and assumes that the
navel opens or that the region between the two breasts is the
birthplace of the child. In this way the curious child approaches
the knowledge of sexual facts, which, clouded by his ignorance,
he often fails to see. In the years prior to puberty he generally
receives an incomplete, disparaging explanation which often
causes traumatic consequences.

You have probably heard that the conception "sexual" is
unduly expanded by psychoanalysis in order that it may main-
tain the hypothesis that all neuroses are due to sexual causes
and that the meaning of the symptoms is sexual. You are now
in a position to judge whether or not this expansion is unjusti-
fiable. We have expanded the conception sexual only to include

276 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the sexual life of children and of perverse persons. That is to
say, we have reestablished its proper boundaries. Outside of
psychoanalysis sexuality means only a very limited thing : normal
sexual life in the service of reproduction.

TWENTY-FIRST LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

Development of the Libido and Sexual Organizations

1AM under the impression that I did not succeed in con-
vincing you of the significance of perversions for our
conception of sexuality. I should therefore like to clarify
and add as much as I can.

It was not only perversions that necessitated an alteration of
our conception of sexuality, which aroused such vehement con-
tradiction. The study of infantile sexuality did a great deal
more along that line, and its close correspondence to the per-
versions became decisive for us. But the origin of the expres-
sions of infantile sexuality, unmistakable as they are in later
years of childhood, seem to be lost in obscurity. Those who dis-
regard the history of evolution and analytic coherence, will
dispute the potency of the sexual factor and will infer the
agency of generalized forces. Do not forget that as yet we
have no generally acknowledged criterion for identifying the
sexual nature of an occurrence, unless we assume that we can
find it in a relation to the functions of reproduction, and this
we must reject as too narrow. The biological criteria, such as
the periodicities of twenty-three and twenty-eight days, sug-
gested by "W. Fliess, are by no means established; the specific
chemical nature which we can possibly assume for sexual occur-
rences is still to be discovered. The sexual perversions of adults,
on the other hand, are tangible and unambiguous. As their
generally accepted nomenclature shows, they are undoubtedly
sexual in character ; whether we designate them as signs of de-
generation, or otherwise, no one has yet had the courage to place
them outside the phenomena of sex. They alone justify the
assertion that sexuality and reproduction are not coincident, for
it is clear that all of them disavow the goal of reproduction.

This brings me to an interesting parallel. While "conscious"
and "psychic" were generally considered to be identical, we

277

278 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

had to make an essay to widen our conception of the "psychic"
to recognize as psychic something that was not conscious. Anal-
ogously, when "sexual" and "related to reproduction" (or, in
shorter form, "genital") has been generally considered identical,
psychoanalysis must admit as "sexual" such things as are not
"genital," things which have nothing to do with reproduction.
It is only a formal analogy, but it does not lack a deeper basis.
But if the existence of sexual perversions is such a compelling
argument, why has it not long ago had its effect, and settled
the question? I really am unable to say. It appears to be
because the sexual perversions are subject to a peculiar ban that
extends even into theory, and stands in the way of their scientific
appreciation. It seems as if no one could forget that they are
not only revolting, but even unnatural, dangerous; as if they
had a seductive influence and that at bottom one had to stifle
a secret envy of those who enjoyed them. As the count who
passes judgment in the famous Tannhauser parody admits :

"And in the mount of Venus, his honor slipped his mind,
It's odd that never happens to people of our kind."

Truthfully speaking, the perverts are rather poor devils who
atone most bitterly for the satisfaction they attain with such
difficulty.

"What makes the perverse activity unmistakably sexual, despite
all the strangeness of its object, is that the act in perverse
satisfaction most frequently is accompanied by a complete
orgasm, and by an ejaculation of the genital product. Of course,
this is only true in the case of adults; with children orgasms
and genital excretions are hardly possible ; they are replaced by
rudiments which, again, are not recognized as truly sexual.

In order to complete the appreciation of sexual perversions,
I have something to add. Condemned as they are, sharply as
they are contrasted with the normal sexual activity, simple ob-
servation shows that rarely is normal sex-life entirely free from
one or another of the perverse traits. Even the kiss can be
claimed to be perverse, for it consists in the union of two eroge-
nous mouth zones in place of the respective genitals. But no
one outlaws it as perverse, it is, on the contrary, admitted in
theatrical performances as a modified suggestion of the sexual

Development of the Libido 279

act. This very kissing may easily become a complete perversion
it' it results in such intensity that it is immediately followed
by an emission and orgasm — a thing that is not at all unusual.
Further, we can learn that handling and gazing upon the object
becomes an essential prerequisite to sexual pleasure ; that some,
in the height of sexual excitation, pinch and bite, that the great-
est excitation is not always called forth in lovers by the genitals,
but rather by other parts of the body, and so forth. There ia
no sense in considering persons with single traits of this kind
abnormal, and counting them among the perverts. Rather, we
recognize more and more clearly that the essential nature of
perversion does not consist in overstepping the sexual aim, nor
in a substitution for the genitals, not even in the variety of
objects, but simply in the exclusiveness with which these devia-
tions are carried out and by means of which the sexual act that
serves reproduction is pushed aside. When the perverse activi-
ties serve to prepare or heighten the normal sexual act, they
are really no longer perversions. To be sure, the chasm between
normal and perverse sexuality is practically bridged by such
facts. The natural result is that normal sexuality takes its origin
from something existing prior to it, since certain components
of this material are thrown out and others are combined in order
to make them subject to a new aim — that of reproduction.

Before we make use of our knowledge of perversions to con-
centrate anew and with clearer perspective on the study of
infantile sexuality, I must call your attention to an important
difference between the two. Perverse sexuality is as a rule
extraordinarily centralized, its whole action is directed toward
one, usually an isolated, goal. A partial instinct has the upper
hand. It is either the only one that can be demonstrated or it
has subjected the others to its purposes. In this respect there
is no difference between normal and perverse sexuality other
than that the ruling partial instincts, and with them the sexual
goals, are different. In the one case as well as in the other there
is, so to say, a well organized tyranny, excepting that here one
family and there another has appropriated all the power to
itself. Infantile sexuality, on the other hand, is on the whole
devoid of such centralization and organization, its individual
component impulses are of equal power, and each independently
goes in search of the acquisition of pleasurable excitement. Tht

280 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

lack as well as the presence of centralization fit in well with the
fact that both the perverse and the normal sexuality originated
from the infantile. There are also cases of perverse sexuality
that have much more similarity with the infantile, where, in-
dependently of one another, numerous partial instincts have
forced their way, insisted on their aims, or rather perpetuated
them. In these cases it is more correct to speak of infantilism
of sexual life than of perversions.

Thus prepared we can consider a question which we certainly
shall not be spared. People will say to us : ' ' Why are you so
set on including within sexuality those manifestations of child-
hood, out of which the sexual later develops, but which, accord-
ing to your own admission, are of uncertain origin? Why are
you not satisfied rather with the physiological description, and
simply say that even in the suckling one may notice activities,
such as sucking objects or holding back excrements, which show
us that he strives towards an organic pleasure t In that way
you would have avoided the estranging conception of sexual life
in the tiniest child." I have nothing to say against organic
pleasure ; I know that the most extreme excitement of the sexual
union is only an organic pleasure derived from the activity of
the genitals. But can you tell me when this organic pleasure,
originally not differentiated, acquires the sexual character that
it undoubtedly does possess in the later phases of development ?
Do you know more about the "organic pleasure" than about
sexuality? You will answer, the sexual character is acquired
when the genitals begin to play their role ; sexual means genital.
You will even reject the contrary evidence of the perversions by
confronting me with the statement that in most perversions it-
is a matter of achieving the genital orgasm, although by other
means than a union of the genitals. You would really command
a much better position if you did not regard as characteristic
of the sexual that untenable relation to reproduction seen in
the perversions, if you replaced it by activity of the genitals.
Then we no longer differ very widely ; the genital organs merely
replace other organs. What do you make of the numerous prac-
tices which show you that the genitals may be represented by
other organs in the attainment of gratification, as is the case in
the normal kiss, or the perverse practices of "fast life," or the
symptoms of hysteria? In these neuroses it is quite usual for

Development of the Libido 281

stimulations, sensations and innervations, even the process of
erection, which is localized in the genitals, to be transferred to
other distant parts of the body, so that you have nothing to
which you can hold as characteristics of the sexual. You will
have to decide to follow my example and expand the designation
"sexual" to include the strivings of early childhood toward
organic pleasure.

Now, for my justification, I should like you to give me the
time for two more considerations. As you know, we call the
doubtful and indefinable pleasure activities of earliest childhood
sexual because our analysis of the symptoms leads us to them
by way of material that is undeniably sexual. We admit that
it need not for that reason in itself be sexual. But take an
analogous case. Suppose there were no way to observe the
development of two dicotyledonous plants from their seeds —
the apple tree and the bean. In both cases, however, imagine it
possible to follow their evolution from the fully developed plant
backwards to the first seedling with two leaf -divisions. The two
little leaves a.He indistinguishable, in both cases they look exactly
alike. Shall 1 conclude from this that they really are the same
and that the specific differences between an apple tree and bean
plant do not appear until later in the history of the plant ? Or
is it biologically more correct to believe that this difference is
already present in the seedling, although the two little leaves
show no differences? We do the same thing when we term as
sexual the pleasure derived from the activities of the suckling.
Whether each and every organic enjoyment may be called sexual,
or if besides the sexual there is another that does not deserve
this name, is a matter I cannot discuss here. I know too little
about organic pleasure and its conditions, and will not be at all
surprised if the retrogressive character of the analysis leads us
back finally to a generalized factor.

One thing more. You have on the whole gained very little
for what you are so anxious to maintain, the sexual purity of
the child, even when you can convince me that the activities of
the suckling had better not be called sexual. For from the third
year on, there is no longer any doubt concerning the presence
of a sexual life in the child. At this time the genitals already
begin to become active; there is perhaps regularly a period of
infantile masturbation, in other words, a gratification by means

282 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

of the genitals. The psychic and social expressions of the sexual
life are no longer absent ; choice of an object, affectionate prefer-
ence for certain persons, indeed, a leaning toward one of the
two sexes, jealousy — all these have been established independent-
ly by unprejudiced observation, prior to the advent of psycho-
analysis, and confirmed by every careful observer. You will
say that you had no doubt as to the early awakening of affection,
you will take issue only with its sexual nature. Children between
the ages of three and eight have already learned to hide these
things, but if you look sharply you can always gather sufficient
evidence of the "sexual" purpose of this affection. What escapes
you will be amply supplied by investigation. The sexual goals
of this period of life are most intimately connected with the
contemporaneous sexual theories, of which I have given you
some examples. The perverse nature of some of these goals is
the result of the constitutional immaturity of the child, who
has not yet discovered the goal of the act of copulation.

From about the sixth or the eighth year on a pause in, and
reversion of, sexual development is noticeable, which in the cases
that reach the highest cultural standard deserves the name of
a latent period. The latent period may also fail to appear and
there need not be an interruption of sexual activity and sexual
Interests at any period. Most of the experiences and impulses
prior to the latent period then fall victim to the infantile
amnesia, the forgetting we have already discussed, which cloaks
our earliest childhood and makes us strangers to it. In every
psychoanalysis' we are confronted with the task of leading this
forgotten period of life back into memory; one cannot resist
the supposition that the beginning of sexual life it contains
furnishes the motive for this forgetting, namely, that this for-
getting is a result of suppression.

The sexual life of the child shows from the third year that
it has much in common with that of the adult ; it is distinguished
from the latter, as we already know, by the lack of stable organ-
ization under the primacy of the genitals, by the unavoidable
traits of perversion, and, naturally, by the far lesser intensity
of the whole impulse. Theoretically the most interesting phases
of the sexual development or, as we would rather say, the libido-
development, so far as theory is concerned, lie back of this

Development of the Libido 283

period. This development is so rapidly gone through that per-
haps it would never have been possible for direct observation
to grasp its fleeting pictures. Psychoanalytic investigation of
the neuroses has for the first time made it possible to discover
more remote phases of the libido-development. These are, to be
sure, nothing but constructions, but if you wish to carry on
psychonalaysis in a practical way you will find that they are
necessary and valuable constructions. You will soon understand
why pathology may disclose conditions which we would have
overlooked in the normal object.

We can now declare what form the sexual life of the child
takes before the primacy of the genitals is established. This
primacy is prepared in the first infantile epoch prior to the
latent period, and is continuously organized from puberty on.
There is in this early period a sort of loose organization, which
we shall call pre-genital. In the foreground of this phase, how-
ever, the partial instincts of the genitals are not prominent,
rather the sadistic and anal. The contrast between masculine
and feminine plays no part as yet, its place is taken by the
contrast between active and passive, which we may designate as
the forerunner of sexual polarity, with which it is later fused.
That which appears masculine to us in the activity of this
phase, observed from the standpoint of the later genital stage,
is the expression of an instinct to mastery, which may border
on cruelty. Impulses with passive goals attach themselves to the
erogenous zone of the rectal opening. Most important at this
time, curiosity and the instinct to watch are powerful. The
genital really takes part in the sexual life only in its role as
excretory organ for the bladder. Objects are not lacking to
the partial impulses of this period, but they do not necessarily
combine into a single object. The sadistico-anal organization is
the step antecedent to the phase of genital primacy. A more
penetrating study furnishes proof how much of this is retained
for the later and final form, and in what ways its partial in.
stincts are forced into line under the new genital organization.
Back of the sadistico-anal phase of libido-development, we get
a view of an earlier, even more primitive phase of organization,
in which the erogenous mouth-zone plays the chief role. You
may surmise that the sexual activity of sucking belongs to it,
and may wonder at the intuition of the ancient Egyptians, whose

284 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

art characterized the child, as well as the god Horus, with the
finger in his mouth. Abraham only recently published material
concerning the traces which this primitive oral phase has left
upon the sexual life of later years.

I can surmise that these details about sexual organization have
burdened your mind more than they have informed you. Per-
haps I have again gone into detail too much. But be patient;
what you have heard will become more valuable through the
uses to which it is later put. Keep well in mind the impression
that sexual life, as we call it, the function of the libido, does not
make its appearance as a completed whole, nor does it develop
in its own image, but goes through a series of successive phases
which are not similar to each other. In fact, it is a develop-
mental sequence, like that from the grub to the butterfly. The
turning point of the development is the subordination of all
sexual partial-instincts to the primacy of the genitals, and there-
by the subjection of sexuality to the function of reproduction.
Originally it is a diffused sexual life, one which consists of
independent activities of single partial instincts which strive
towards organic gratification. This anarchy is modified by
approaches to pre-genital organization, first of all the sadistico-
anal phase, prior to this the oral phase, which is perhaps the
most primitive. Added to this there are the various processes,
as yet not well known, which carry over one organization level
to the later and more advanced phase. The significance, for
the understanding of the neuroses, of the long evolutionary path
of the libido which carries it over so many grades we shall
discuss on another occasion.

Today we shall look at another angle of the development,
namely the relation of the partial instinct to the object. We
shall make a hurried survey of this development in order to
spend more time upon a relatively later product. Some of the
components of the sex instincts have had an object from the
very beginning and hold fast to it; such are the instinct to
mastery (sadism), curiosity, and the impulse to watch. Other
impulses which are more clearly attached to specific erogenous
zones of the body have this object only in the beginning, as
long as they adhere to the functions which are not sexual ; they
release this object when they free themselves from these non-
sexual functions. The first object of the oral component of the

Development of the Libido 285

sexual impulse is the mother's breast, which satisfies the hunger
of the infant. By the act of sucking, the erotic component which
is also satisfied by the sucking becoming independent, it gives up
the foreign object and replaces it by some part of its own body.
The oral impulse becomes auto-erotic, just as the anal and other
erogenous impulses are from the very beginning. Further de-
velopment, to express it most briefly, has two goals — first, to
give up auto-eroticism, and, again, to substitute for the object
of one's own body a foreign object; second, to unify the differ-
ent objects into a single impulse, replace them by a single object.
To be sure, that can happen only if this single object is itself
complete, a body similar to one's own. Nor can it be consum-
mated without leaving behind as useless a large number of the
auto-erotic instinctive impulses.

The processes of finding the object are rather involved, and
have as yet had no comprehensive exposition. For our purpose,
let us emphasize the fact that when the process has come to a
temporary cessation in the childhood years, before the latent
period, the object it has found is seen to be practically identical
with the first object derived from its relation to the object of
the oral pleasure impulse. It is, if not the mother's breast, the
mother herself. We call the mother the first object of love. For
we speak of love when we emphasize the psychic side of sex-
impulses, and disregard or for a moment wish to forget the
fundamental physical or "sensual" demands of the instincts.
At the time when the mother becomes the object of love, the
psychic work of suppression which withdraws the knowledge of
a part of his sexual goal from his consciousness has already
begun in the child. The selection of the mother as the object
of love involves everything we understand by the Oedipus
complex which has come to have such great significance in
the psychoanalytic explanation of neuroses, and which has had
no small part in arousing opposition to psychoanalysis.

Here is a little experience which took place during the present
war: A brave young disciple of psychoanalysis is a doctor at
the German front somewhere in Poland, and attracts the atten-
tion of his colleagues by the fact that he occasionally exercises
an unexpected influence in the case of a patient. Upon being
questioned he admits that he works by means of psychoanalysis,
and is finally induced to impart his knowledge to his colleagues.

286 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Every evening the physicians of the corps, colleagues and su-
periors, gather in order to listen to the inmost secrets of analysis.
For a while this goes on nicely, but after he has told his audi-
ence of the Oedipus-complex, a superior rises and says he does
not believe it, that it is shameful for the lecturer to tell such
things to them, brave men who are fighting for their fatherland,
and who are the fathers of families, and he forbade the continua-
tion of the lectures. This was the end.

Now you will be impatient to discover what this frightful
Oedipus-complex consists of. The name tells you. You all
know the Greek myth of King Oedipus, who is destined by the
fates to kill his father, and take his mother to wife, who does
everything to escape the oracle and then does penance by blind-
ing himself when he discovers that he has, unknowingly, com-
mitted these two sins. I trust many of you have yourselves
experienced the profound effect of the tragedy in which
Sophocles handles this material. The work of the Attic poet
presents the manner in which the deed of Oedipus, long since
accomplished, is finally brought to light by an artistically pro«
longed investigation, continuously fed with new evidence ; thus
far it has a certain similarity to the process of psychoanalysis.
In the course of the dialogue it happens that the infatuated
mother-wife, Jocasta, opposes the continuation of the investiga-
tion. She recalls that many men have dreamed that they have
cohabited with their mothers, but one should lay little stress
on dreams. "We do not lay little stress on dreams, least of all
typical dreams such as occur to many men, and we do not doubt
that this dream mentioned by Jocasta is intimately connected
with the strange and frightful content of the myth.

It is surprising that Sophocles' tragedy does not call forth
much greater indignation and opposition on the part of the
audience, a reaction similar to, and far more justified, than the
reaction to our simple military physician. For it is a funda-
mentally immoral play, it dispenses with the moral responsibility
of men, it portrays godlike powers as instigators of guilt, and
shows the helplessness of the moral impulses of men which
contend against sin. One might easily suppose that the burden
of the myth purposed accusation against the gods and Fate,
and in the hands of the critical Euripides, always at odds with
the gods, it would probably have become such an accusation.

Development of the Libido 287

But there is no trace of this in the work of the believer Sophocles.
A pious sophistry which asserts that the highest morality is to
bow to the will of the gods, even if they command a crime, helps
him over the difficulty. I do not think that this moral constitutes
the power of the drama, but so far as the effect goes, that is un-
unportant; the listener does not react to it, but to the secret
meaning and content of the myth. He reacts as though through
self -analysis he had recognized in himself the Oedipus-complex,
and had unmasked the will of the gods, as well as the oracle,
as sublime disguises of his own unconsciousness. It is as though
he remembered the wish to remove his father, and in his place
to take his mother to wife, and must be horrified at his own
desires. He also understands the voice of the poet as if it were
telling him: "You revolt in vain against your responsibility,
and proclaim in vain the efforts you have made to resist these
criminal purposes. In spite of these efforts, you are guilty, for
you have not been able to destroy the criminal purposes, they
will persist unconsciously in you. ' ' And in that there is psycho-
logical truth. Even if man has relegated his evil impulses to
the unconscious, and would tell himself that he is no longer
answerable for them, he will still be compelled to experience
this responsibility as a feeling of guilt which he cannot trace
to its source.

It is not to be doubted for a moment that one may recognize
in the Oedipus-complex one of the most important sources for
the consciousness of guilt with which neurotics are so often
harassed. But furthermore, in a study of the origins of religion
and morality of mankind which I published in 1913, under the
title of Totem and Taboo, the idea was brought home to me
that perhaps mankind as a whole has, at the beginning of its
history, come by its consciousness of guilt, the final source of
religion and morality, through the Oedipus-complex. I should
like to say more on this subject, but perhaps I had better not.
It is difficult to turn away from this subject now that I have
begun speaking of it, but we must return to individual psy-
chology.

What does direct observation of the child at the time of the
selection of its object, before the latent period, show us con«
cerning the Oedipus-complex? One may easily see that the little
man would like to have the mother all to himself, that he finds

288 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the presence of his father disturbing, he becomes irritated when
the latter permits himself to show tenderness towards the mother,
and expresses his satisfaction when the father is away or on a
journey. Frequently he expresses his feelings directly in words,
promises the mother he will marry her. One may think this is
very little in comparison with the deeds of Oedipus, but it is
actually enough, for it is essentially the same thing. The obser-
vation is frequently clouded by the circumstance that the same
child at the same time, on other occasions, gives evidence of
great tenderness towards its father; it is only that such con-
tradictory, or rather, ambivalent emotional attitudes as would
lead to a conflict in the case of an adult readily take their place
side by side in a child, just as later on they permanently exist
in the unconscious. You might wish to interpose that the be-
havior of the child springs from egoistic motives and does not
justify the setting up of an erotic complex. The mother provides
for all the necessities of the child, and it is therefore to the
child's advantage that she troubles herself for no one else.
This, too, is correct, but it will soon be clear that in this, as in
similar situations, the egoistic interest offers only the oppor-
tunity upon which the erotic impulse seizes. If the little one
shows the most undisguised sexual curiosity about his mother,
if he wants to sleep with her at night, insists upon being present
while she is dressing, or attempts to caress her, as the mother
can so often ascertain and laughingly relates, it is undoubtedly
due to the erotic nature of the attachment to his mother. "We
must not forget that the mother shows the same care for her
little daughter without achieving the same effect, and that the
father often vies with her in caring for the boy without being
able to win the same importance in his eyes as the mother. In
short, it is clear that the factor of sex-preference cannot be
eliminated from the situation by any kind of criticism. From
the standpoint of egoistic interest it would merely be stupid
of the little fellow not to tolerate two persons in his services
rather than only one.

I have, as you will have noticed, described only the relation
of the boy to his father and mother. As far as the little girl is
concerned, the process is the same with the necessary modifica-
tions. The affectionate devotion to the father, the desire to set
aside the mother as superfluous and to take her place, a coquetry

Development of the Libido 289

which already works with all the arts of later womanhood, give
such a charming picture, especially in the baby girl, that we
are apt to forget its seriousness, and the grave consequences
which may result from this infantile situation. Let us not fail
to add that frequently the parents themselves exert a decisive
influence over the child in the wakening of the Oedipus attitude,
in that they themselves follow a sex preference when there are
a number of children. The father in the most unmistakable
manner shows preference for the daughter, while the mother is
most affectionate toward the son. But even this factor cannot
seriously undermine the spontaneous character of the childish
Oedipus-complex. The Oedipus-complex expands and becomes a
family-complex when other children appear. It becomes the
motive force, revived by the sense of personal injury, which
causes the child to receive its brothers and sisters with aversion
and to wish to remove them without more ado. It is much more
frequent for the children to express these feelings of hatred than
those arising from the parent-complex. If such a wish is ful-
filled, and death takes away the undesired increase in the family,
after a short while we may discover through analysis what an
important experience this death was for the child, even though
he had not remembered it. The child forced into second place
by the birth of a little brother or sister, and for the first time
practically isolated from his mother, is loathe to forgive her for
this; feelings which we would call extreme bitterness in an
adult are aroused in him and often become the basis of a lasting
estrangement. We have already mentioned that sexual curiosity
with all its consequences usually grows out of these experiences
of the child. With the growing up of these brothers and sisters
the relation to them undergoes the most significant changes. The
boy may take his sister as the object for his love, to replace his
faithless mother; situations of dangerous rivalry, which are
of vast importance for later life, arise even in the nursery among
numerous brothers who court the affection of a younger sister.
A little girl finds in her older brother a substitute for her father,
who no longer acts towards her with the same affection as in
former years, or she takes a younger sister as a substitute for
the child that she vainly wished of her father.

Such things, and many more of a similar character, are shown
by the direct observation of children and the consideration of

290 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

their vivid childish recollections, which are not influenced by
the analysis. You will conclude, among other things, that the
position of a child in the sequence of his brothers and sisters
is of utmost importance for the entire course of his later life,
a factor which should be considered in every biography. In
the face of these explanations that are found with so little effort,
you will hardly recall without smiling the scientific explanations
for the prohibition of incest. What inventions! By living to-
gether from early childhood the sexual attraction must have been
diverted from these members of the family who are of opposite
sex, or a biological tendency against in-breeding finds its psychic
equivalent in an innate dread of incest! In this no account
is taken of the fact that there would be no need of so unrelent-
ing a prohibition by law and morality if there were any natural
reliable guards against the temptation of incest. Just the oppo-
site is true. The first choice of an object among human beings is
regularly an incestuous one, in the man directed toward the
mother and sister, and the most stringent laws are necessary to
prevent this persisting infantile tendency from becoming active.
Among the primitive races the prohibitions against incest are
much more stringent than ours, and recently Th. Reik showed
in a brilliant paper that the puberty-rites of the savages, which
represent a rebirth, have the significance of loosing the incestu-
ous bonds of the boy to his mother, and of establishing the
reconciliation with the father.

Mythology teaches that incest, apparently so abhorred by men,
is permitted to the gods without further thought, and you may
learn from ancient history that incestuous marriage with his
sister was holy prescript for the person of the ruler (among
the ancient Pharaohs and the Incas of Peru). "We have here
a privilege denied the common herd.

Incest with his mother is one of the sins of Oedipus, patricide
the other. It might also be mentioned that these are the two
great sins which the first social-religious institution of mankind,
totemism, abhors. Let us turn from the direct observation
of the child to analytic investigation of the adult neurotic.
What does analysis yield to the further knowledge of the
Oedipus-complex ? This is easily told. It shows the patient up
in the light of the myth; it shows that each of these neurotics
was himself an Oedipus or, what amoun s to the same thing,

Development of the Libido 291

became a Hamlet in the reaction to the complex. To be sure,
the analytic representation of the Oedipus-complex enlarges
upon and is a coarser edition of the infantile sketch. The hatred
of the father, the death-wish with regard to him, are no longer
timidly suggested, the affection for the mother recognizes the
goal of possessing her for a wife. Dare we really accredit these
horrible and extreme feelings to those tender childhood years,
or does analysis deceive us by bringing in some new element?
It is not difficult to discover this. Whenever an account of
past events is given, be it written even by a historian, we must
take into account the fact that inadvertently something has
been interpolated from the present and from intervening times
into the past ; so that the entire picture is falsified. In the case
of the neurotic it is questionable whether this interpolation is
entirely unintentional or not; we shall later come to learn its
motives and must justify the fact of "imagining back" into
the remote past. We also easily discover that hatred of the
father is fortified by numerous motives which originate in later
times and circumstances, since the sexual wishes for the mother
are cast in forms which are necessarily foreign to the child. But
it would be a vain endeavor to explain the whole of the Oedipus-
complex by "imagining back," and as related to later times.
The infantile nucleus and more or less of what has been added
to it continues to exist and may be verified by the direct obser-
vation of the child.

The clinical fact which we meet with in penetrating the form
of the Oedipus-complex as established by analysis, is of the
greatest practical importance. We learn that at the period of
puberty, when the sexual instinct first asserts its demands in
full strength, the old incestuous and familiar objects are again
taken up and seized anew by the libido. The infant 's choice of
an object was feeble, but it nevertheless set the direction for
the choice of an object in puberty. At that time very intense
emotional experiences are brought into play and directed towards
the Oedipus-complex, or utilized in the reaction to it. However,
since their presuppositions have become unsupportable, they
must in large part remain outside of consciousness. From this
time on the human individual must devote himself to the great
task of freeing himself from his parents, and only after he has
freed himself can he cease to be a child, and become a member

292 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

of the social community. The task confronting the son consists
of freeing himself from his libidinous wishes towards his mother
and utilizing them in the quest for a really foreign object for
his love. He must also effect a reconciliation with his father,
if he has stayed hostile to him, or if in the reaction to his
infantile opposition he has become subject to his domination, he
must now free himself from this pressure. These tasks are set
for every man; it is noteworthy how seldom their solution is
ideally achieved, i.e., how seldom the solution is psychologically
as well as socially correct. Neurotics, however, find no solution
whatever; the son remains during his whole life subject to the
authority of his father, and is not able to transfer his libido
to a foreign sexual object. Barring the difference in the specific
relation, the same fate may befall the daughter. In this sense
the Oedipus-complex is correctly designated as the nucleus of
the neurosis.

You can imagine how rapidly I am reviewing a great number
of conditions which are associated with the Oedipus-complex, of
practical as well as of theoretical importance. I cannot enter
upon their variations or possible inversions. Of its less immedi-
ate relations I only wish to indicate the influence which the
Oedipus-complex has been found to exert on literary production.
In a valuable book, Otto Kank has shown that the dramatists
of all times have taken their materials principally from the
Oedipus- and incest-complexes, with their variations and dis-
guises. Moreover, we will not forget to mention that the two
guilty wishes of Oedipus were recognized long before the time of
psychoanalysis as the true representatives of the unrestrained life
of impulses. Among the writings of the encyclopedist Diderot
we find a famous dialogue, The Nephew of Ramau, which no
less a person than Goethe has translated into German. In this
you may read the remarkable sentence: "If the little savage
were left to himself he would preserve all his imbecility, lie
would unite the passions of a man of thirty to the unreasonable-
ness of the child in the cradle; he would twist his father's neck
and bed with his mother."

There is also one other thing of which I must needs speak.
The mother-wife of Oedipus shall not have reminded us of the
dream in vain. Do you still remember the result of our dream
analysis, that the wishes out of which the dream is constructed

Development of the Libido 293

so frequently are of a perverse, incestuous nature, or disclose
an enmity toward near and beloved relatives the existence of
which had never been suspected ? At the time we did not trace
the sources of these evil impulses. Now you may see them foi
yourselves. They represent the disposition made in early in-
fancy of the libidinous energy, with the objects, long since given
up in conscious life, to which it had once clung, which are now
shown at night to be still present and in a certain sense capable
of activity. But since all people have such perverse, incestuous
and murderous dreams, and not the neurotics alone, we may
conclude that even those who are normal have passed through the
same evolutionary development, through the perversions and
the direction of the libidio toward the objects of the Oedipus-
complex. This, then, is the way of normal development, upon
which the neurotics merely enlarge. They show in cruder form
what dream analysis exposes in the healthy dreamer as well.
Accordingly here is one of the motives which led us to deal
with the study of the dream before we considered the neurotic
symptom.

TWENTY-SECOND LECTUKE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

Theories of Development and Regression — Etiology

WE have learned that the libidio goes through an ex-
tensive development before it can enter the service
of reproduction in a way which may be regarded
as normal. Now I wish to present to you what
importance this fact possesses for the causation of neuroses.

I believe we are in harmony with the teachings of general
pathology in assuming that this development involves two
dangers, inhibition and regression. In other words, with the
universal tendency of biological processes toward variation, it
must necessarily happen that not all preparatory phases of a
given function are equally well passed through or accomplished
with comparable thoroughness. Certain components of a func-
tion may be permanently held back in an early stage of develop-
ment and the complete development is therefore retarded to a
certain extent.

Let us seek analogies for these processes from other fields.
If a whole people leaves its dwellings to seek a new home, as
frequently happened in the early periods of the history of man-
kind, their entire number will certainly not reach the new des-
tination. Setting aside other losses, small groups or associations
of these wandering peoples would stop on the way, and, while
the majority passes on, they would settle down at these way-
stations. Or, to seek a more appropriate comparison : You know
that in the most highly evolved mammals, the male seminal
glands, which originally are located in the far depths of the
abdominal cavity, begin to wander during a certain period
of intra-uterine life until they reach a position almost immedi-
ately under the skin of the pelvic extremity. In the case of a
number of male individuals, one of the paired glands may as a
result of this wandering remain in the pelvic cavity, or may be
permanently located in the canal through which both glands must
pass in their journey, or finally the canal itself may stay open

294

Theories of Development and Regression 295

permanently instead of growing together with the seminal glands
after the change of position has taken place normally. When,
as a young student, I was doing my first piece of scientific re-
search under the direction of von Briicke, I was working on the
dorsal nerve-roots in the spinal cord of a small fish very archaic
in form. I discovered that the nerve ganglia of these roots
grow out from large cells which lie in the grey matter of the
dorsal column, a condition no longer true of other vertebrates.
But I soon discovered that such nerve cells are found outside
the grey matter all the way to the so-called spinal ganglion of
the dorsal root. From this I concluded that the cells of this
group of ganglia had traveled from the spinal cord to the roots
of the nerves. This same result is attested by embryology.
In this little fish, however, the entire path of the journey was
traceable by the cells that had remained behind. Closer obser«
vation will easily reveal to you the weak points of these compari-_
sons. Therefore let me simply say that with reference to every
single sexual impulse, I consider it possible for several of its )
components to be held back in the earlier stages of development \
while other components have worked themselves out to comple-J
tion. You will realize that we think of every such impulse as
a current continuously driving on from the very beginning of
life, and that our resolving it into individual movements which
follow separately one upon the other is to a certain extent
artificial. Your impression that these concepts require further
clarification is correct, but an attempt would lead to too great
digression. Before we pass on, however, let us agree to call
this arrest of a partial impulse in an early stage of development,
a fixation of the instinct.

Regression is the second danger of this development by stages.
Even those components which have achieved a degree of progress
may readily turn backward to these earlier stages. Having at-
tained to this later and more highly developed form, the impulse
is forced to a regression when it encounters great external diffi-
culties in the exercise of its function, and accordingly cannot
reach the goal which will satisfy its strivings. We can obviously
assume that fixation and regression are not independent of each
other. The stronger the fixations in the process of development
prove to be, the more readily will the function evade external
difficulties by a regression back to those fixations, and the less

296 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

capable will the fully developed function be to withstand the
hindrances that stand in the way of its exercise. Remember
that if a people in its wandering has left large groups at certain
way-stations, it is natural for those who have gone on to return
to these stations if they are beaten or encounter a mighty foe.
The more they have left on the way, however, the greater is
their chance of defeat.

For your comprehension of the neuroses it is necessary to
keep in mind this connection between fixation and regression.
This will give you a secure hold upon the question of the cause
of neuroses — of the etiology of neuroses — which we shall soon
consider.

For the present we have still to discuss various aspects of
regression. With the knowledge you have gained concerning
the development of the function of libido, you must expect two
kinds of regression: incestuous return to the first libidinous
objects and return of the entire sexual organization to an earlier
stage of development. Both occur in the transference neuroses
and play an important part in its mechanism. Especially is
the return to the first incestuous objects of libido a feature that
the neurotic exhibits with positively tiresome regularity. We
could say far more about regression of libido if we took into
consideration another group of neuroses: neurotic narcism
But we cannot do this now. These conditions give us a clue to
other stages of development of the function of libido, which have
not been mentioned previously, and correspondingly show new
kinds of regression. But I think the most important task
before me at this point is to warn you not to confuse regression
and suppression, and aid you to see clearly the connection be-
tween the two processes. Suppression, as you know, is the pro-
cess by which an act capable of becoming conscious, in other
words, an act that belongs to the fore-conscious system, is
rendered unconscious and accordingly is thrust back into the
unconscious system. Similarly we speak of suppression when the
unconscious psychic act never has been admitted into the ad-
joining fore-conscious system but is arrested by the censor at the
threshold. Kindly observe that the conception of suppression
has nothing to do with sexuality. It describes a purely psycho-
logical process, which could better be characterized by terming
it localized. By that we mean that it is concerned with the

Theories of Development and Regression 297

spatial relationships within the psyche, or if we drop this crudt
metaphor, with building up the psychological apparatus out of
separate, psychic systems.

Through these comparisons we observe that up to this point
we have not used the word regression in its general, but in a
very special sense. If you accord it the general meaning of
return from a higher to a lower stage of development you must
include suppression as a form of regression, for suppression may
also be described as the reversion to an earlier and lower stage
in the development of a psychic act. Only in regard to sup-
pression, this tendency to revert is not necessarily involved, for
when a psychic act is held back in the early unconscious stage
we also term it suppression in a dynamic sense. Suppression is
a localized and dynamic conception, regression purely descrip-
tive. What up this point we have called regression and con-
sidered in its relation to fixation, was only the return of libido
to former stages of its development. The nature of this latter
conception is entirely distinct and independent of suppression.
We cannot call the libido regressions purely psychical processes
and do not know what localization in the psychological apparatus
we should assign to them. Even though the libido exerts a
most powerful influence on psychic life, its organic significance
is still the most conspicuous.

Discussions of this sort, gentlemen, are bound to be somewhat
dry. To render them more vivid and impressive, let us return
to clinical illustrations. You know that hysteria and compulsion-
neurosis are the two chief factors in the group of transference
neuroses. In hysteria, libidinous return to primary, incestuous
sexual objects is quite regular, but regression to a former stage
of sexual organization very rare. In the mechanism of hysteria
suppression plays the chief part. If you will permit me to sup-
plement our previous positive knowledge of this neurosis by a
constructive suggestion, I could describe the state of affairs
in this manner: the union of the partial instincts under the
domination of the genitals is accomplished, but its results en-
counter the opposition of the fore-conscious system which, of
course, is bound up with consciousness. Genital organization^
therefore, may stand for the unconscious but not for the fore-
conscious. Through this rejection on the part of the fore-con-
scious, a situation arises which in certain aspects is similar to

298 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the condition existing before the genitals had attained their
primacy. Of the two libido regressions, the regression to a
former stage of sexual organization is by far the more con-
spicuous. Since it is lacking in hysteria and our entire con-
ception of the neuroses is still too much dominated by the study
of hysteria which preceded it in point of time, the meaning of
libido regression became clearer to us much later than that of
repression. Let us be prepared to widen and change our attitude
still more when we consider other narcistic neuroses besides com-
pulsion-neurosis and hysteria in our discussion.

In contrast to this, regression of libido in compulsion-neurosis
turns back most conspicuously to the earlier sadistico-anal
organization, which accordingly becomes the most significant
factor expressed by the symptoms. Under these conditions the
love impulse must mask itself as a sadistic impulse. The com-
pulsion idea must therefore be reinterpreted. Isolated from
other superimposed factors, which though they are not acci-
dental are also indispensable, it no longer reads: "I want to
murder you "; rather it says " I want to enjoy you in love."
Add to this, that simultaneously regression of the object has also
set in, so that this impulse is invariably directed toward the
nearest and dearest persons, and you can imagine with what
horror the patient thinks of these compulsion ideas and how alien
they appear to his conscious perception. In the mechanism of
these neuroses, suppression, too, assumes an important part,
which it is not easy to explain in a superficial discussion of this
sort. Kegression of the libido without suppression would never
result in neurosis but would finally end in perversion. This
makes it obvious that suppression is the process most charac-
teristic of neurosis, and typifies it most perfectly. Perhaps I
shall at some future time have the opportunity of presenting to
you our knowledge of the mechanism o*f perversions and then
you will see that here also things do not work themselves out as
simply as we should best like to construe them.

You will most readily reconcile yourself with these elucida-
tions of fixation and regression, when you consider them as a
preface to the investigation of the etiology of neuroses. Towards
this I have only advanced a single fact: that people become
neurotically ill when the possibility of satisfying their libido is
removed, ill with "denial," as I expressed myself, and that

Theories of Development and Regression 299

their symptoms are the substitutes for the denied gratification.
Of course, that does not mean that every denial of libidinous
satisfaction makes every person neurotic, but merely that in all
cases known of neurosis, the factor of denial was traceable. The
syllogism therefore cannot be reversed. You also understand,
1 trust, that this statement is not supposed to reveal the entire
secret of the etiology of neurosis, but only emphasizes an im-
portant and indispensable condition.

Now, we do not know, in the further discussion of this state-
ment, whether to emphasize the nature of denial or the indi-
viduality of the person affected by it. Denial is very rarely
complete and absolute; to cause a pathological condition, the
specific gratification desired by the particular person in ques-
tion must be withheld, the certain satisfaction of which he alone
is capable. On the whole there are many ways of enduring
abstinence from libidinous gratification without succumbing to
a neurosis by reason thereof. Above all we know of people who
are able to endure abstinence without doing themselves injury;
they are not happy under the circumstances, they are filled
with yearning, but they do not become ill. Furthermore, we
must take into consideration that the impulses of the sex in-
stinct are extraordinarily plastic, if I may use that term in this
connection. One thing may take the place of the other ; one may
assume the other's intensity; if reality refuses the one gratifi*
cation, the satisfaction of another may offer full compensation.
The sexual impulses are like a network of communicating chan-
nels filled with fluids ; they are this in spite of their subjugation
to the primacy of the genitals, though I realize it is difficult
to unite these two ideas in one conception. The component
impulses of sexuality as well as the total sexual desire, which
represents their aggregate, show a marked ability to change
their object, to exchange it, for instance, for one more easily
attainable. This displacement and the readiness to accept sub-
stitutes must exert powerful influences in opposition to the
pathological effect of abstinence. Among these processes which
resist the ill effects of abstinence, one in particular has won
cultural significance. Sexual desire relinquishes either its goal
of partial gratification of desire, or the goal of. desire toward
reproduction, and adopts another aim, genetically related to the
abandoned one. save that it is no longer sexual but must bd

300 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

termed social. This process is called "sublimation," and in
adopting this process we subscribe to the general standard which
places social aims above selfish sexual desires. Sublimation is,
as a matter of fact, only a special case of the relation of sexual
to non-sexual desires. We shall have occasion to talk more about
this later in another connection.

Now your impression will be that abstinence has become an
insignificant factor, since there are so many methods of enduring
it. Yet this is not the case, for its pathological power is unim-
paired. The remedies are generally not sufficient. The measure
of unsatisfied libido which the average human being can stand is
limited. The plasticity and freedom of movement of libido is
by no means retained to the same extent by all individuals;
sublimation can, moreover, never account for more than a cer-
tain small fraction of the libido, and finally most people possess
the capacity for sublimation only to a very slight degree. The
most important of these limitations clearly lies in the adapta-
bility of the libido, as it renders the gratification of the indi-
vidual dependent upon the attainment of only a very few aims
and objects. Kindly recall that incomplete development of the
libido leaves extensive and possibly even numerous libido fixa-
tions in earlier developmental phases of the processes of sexual
organization and object-finding, and that these phases are
usually not capable of affording a real gratification. You will
then recognize libido fixation as the second powerful factor which
together with abstinence constitutes the causative factors of the
illness. "We may abbreviate schematically and say that libido
fixation represents the internal disposing factor, abstinence the
accidental external factor of the etiology of neurosis.

I seize the opportunity to warn you of taking sides in a most
unnecessary conflict. In scientific affairs it is a popular pro-
ceeding to emphasize a part of the truth in place of the whole
truth and to combat all the rest, which has lost none of its verity,
in the name of that fraction. In this way various factions
have already separated out from the movement of psychoanaly«
BIS ; one faction recognizes only the egoistic impulses and denies
the sexual, another appreciates the influence of objective tasks
in life, but ignores the part played by the individual past, and
so on. Here is occasion for a similar antithesis and subject
for dispute : are neuroses exogenous or endogenous diseases, are

Theories of Development arid Regression 301

they the inevitable results of a special constitution or the product
of certain harmful (traumatic) impressions; in particular, are
they called forth by libido fixation (and the sexual constitution
which goes with this) or through the pressure of forbearance 1
This dilemma seems to me no whit wiser than another I could
present to you: is the child created through the generation of
the father or the conception of the mother? Both factors are
equally essential, you will answer very properly. The conditions
which cause neuroses are very similar if not precisely the same.
For the consideration of the causes of neuroses, we may arrange
neurotic diseases in a series, in which two factors, sexual consti-
tution and experience, or, if you wish, libido-fixation and self-
denial, are represented in such a way that one increases as the
other decreases. At one end of the series are the extreme cases,
of which you can say with full conviction : These persons would
have become ill because of the peculiar development of their
libido, no matter what they might have experienced, no matter
how gently life might have treated them. At the other end are
cases which would call forth the reversed judgment, that the
patients would undoubtedly have escaped illness if life had not
thrust certain conditions upon them. But in the intermediate
cases of the series, predisposing sexual constitution and sub-
versive demands of life combine. Their sexual constitution
would not have given rise to neurosis if the victims had not had
such experiences, and their experiences would not have acted
upon them traumatically if the conditions of the libido had been
otherwise. Within this series I may grant a certain preponder-
ance to the weight carried by the predisposing factors, but this
admission, too, depends upon the boundaries within which you
wish to delimit nervousness.

Allow me to suggest that you call such series complementary
series. "We shall have occasion to establish other series of this
sort.

The tenacity with which the libido clings to certain tendencies
and objects, the so-called adhesiveness of the libido, appears to
us as an independent factor, individually variable, the deter-
mining conditions of which are completely unknown to us, but
the importance of which for the etiology of the neuroses we can
no longer underestimate. At the same time we must not over-
estimate the closeness of this interrelation. A similar adhesive-

302 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ness of the libido occurs — for unknown reasons — in normal per-
sons under various conditions, and is a determining factor in
the perverse, who are in a certain sense the opposite of nervous.
Before the period of psychoanalysis, it was known (Binet) that
the anamnesia of the perverse is often traced back to an early
impression — an abnormality in the tendency of the instinct or
its choice of object — and it is to this that the libido of the
individual has clung for life. Frequently it is hard to say how
such an impression becomes capable of attracting the libido so
intensively. I shall give you a case of this kind which I ob-
served myself. A man, to whom the genital and all other sex
stimuli of woman now mean nothing, who in fact can only be
thrown into an irresistible sexual excitation by the sight of a
shoe on a foot of a certain form, is able to recall an experience
he had in his sixth year, which proved decisive for the fixation
of his libido. One day he sat on a stool beside his governess,
who was to give him an English lesson. She was an old, shriv-
eled, unbeautiful girl with washed-out blue eyes and a pug nose,
who on this day, because of some injury, had put a velvet slipper
on her foot and stretched it out on a footstool ; the leg itself she
had most decorously covered. After a diffident attempt at nor-
mal sexual activity, undertaken during puberty, such a thin
sinewy foot as his governess' had become the sole object of his
sexuality; and the man was irresistibly carried away if other
features, reminiscent of the English governess, appeared in
conjunction with the foot. Through this fixation of the libido
the man did not become neurotic but perverse, a foot fetishist,
as we say. So you see that, although exaggerated and premature
fixation of the libido is indispensable for the causation of neu-
roses, its sphere of action exceeds the limits of neuroses im-
measurably. This condition also, taken by itself, is no more
decisive than abstinence.

And so the problem of the cause of neuroses seems to become
more complicated. Psychoanalytic investigation does, in fact,
acquaint us with a new factor, not considered in our etiological
series, which is recognized most easily in those cases where per-
manent well-being is suddenly disturbed by an attack of neurosis.
These individuals regularly show signs of contradiction between
their wishes, or, as we are wont to say, indication of psychic
conflict. A part of their personality represents certain wishes,

Theories of Development and Regression 303

another rebels against them and resists them. A neurosis cannot
come into existence without such conflict. This may seem to be
of small significance. You know that our psychic life is con-
tinually agitated by conflicts for which we must find a solution.
Certain conditions, therefore, must exist to make such a conflict
pathological. We want to know what these conditions are, what
psychic powers form the background for these pathological
conflicts, what relation the conflict bears to the causative factors.

I hope I shall be able to give you satisfactory answers to
these questions even if I must make them schematically brief.
Self-denial gives rise to conflict, for libido deprived of its grati-
fication is forced to seek other means and ends. A pathogenic
conflict arises when these other means and ends arouse the
disfavor of one part of the personality, and a veto ensues which
makes the new mode of gratification impossible for the time
being. This is the point of departure for the development of
the symptoms, a process which we shall consider later. The
rejected libidinous desires manage to have their own way,
through circuitous byways, but not without catering to the
objections through the observance of certain symptom-forma-
tion ; the symptoms are the new or substitute satisfaction which
the condition of self-denial has made necessary.

We can express the significance of the psychic conflict in
another way, by saying : the outer self-denial, in order to become
pathological, must be supplemented by an inner self-denial.
Outer denial removes one possibility of gratification, inner denial
would like to exclude another possibility, and it is this second
possibility which becomes the center of the ensuing conflict. I
prefer this form of presentation because it possesses secret con-
tent. It implies the probability that the inner impediment found
its origin in the prehistoric stage of human development in real
external hindrances.

What powers are these which interpose objections to libidinous
desire, who are the other parties to the pathological conflict T
They are, in the widest sense, the non-sexual impulses. We call
them comprehensively the "ego impulses"; psychoanalysis of
transference neuroses does not grant us ready access to their
further investigation, but we learn to know them, in a measure,
through the resistance they offer to analysis. The pathological
struggle is waged between ego-impulses and sexual impulses. In

304 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

a series of cases it appears as though conflict could exist between
various purely sexual desires ; but that is really the same thing,
for of the two sexual desires involved in the conflict, one is
always considerate of the ego, while the other demands that the
ego be denied, and so it remains a conflict between the ego and
sexuality.

Again and again when psychoanalysis claimed that psycho-
logical event was the result of sexual impulses, indignant protest
was raised that in psychic life there were other impulses and
interests besides the sexual, that everything could not be derived
from sexuality, etc. Well, it is a great pleasure to share for once
the opinion of one's opponents. Psychoanalysis never forgot
that non-sexual impulses exist. It insisted on the decided dis-
tinction between sexual and ego-impulses and maintained in
the face of every objection not that neuroses arise from sex-
uality, but that they owe their origin to the conflict between
sexuality and the ego. Psychoanalysis can have no reasonable
motive for denying the existence or significance of ego-impulses,
even though it investigates the influence sexual impulses play
in illness and in life. Only it has been destined to deal primarily
with sexual impulses, because transference neuroses have fur-
nished the readiest access to their investigation, and because it
had become obligatory to study what others had neglected.

It does not follow, either, that psychoanalysis has never occu-
pied itself at all with the non-sexual side of personality. The
very distinction of the ego from sexuality has shown most clearly
that the ego-impulses also pass through a significant develop-
ment, which is by no means entirely independent of the develop-
ment of the libido, nor does it fail to exert a reaction upon it.
To be sure, we know much less about the evolution of the ego
than about libido development, for so far only the study of
narcistic neuroses has promised to throw light on the structure
of the ego. There is extant the notable attempt of Ferenczi to
construct theoretically the stages of ego development, and fur-
thermore we already possess two fixed points from which to
proceed in our evolution of this development. "We do not dream
of asserting that the libidinous interests of a person are from
the outset opposed to the interests of self-preservation ; in every
stage, rather, the ego will strive to remain in harmony with its
sexual organization at that time, and accommodate itself thereto.

Theories of Development and Regression 305

The succession of the separate phases of development of libido
probably follows a prescribed program; but we cannot deny
that this sequence can be influenced by the ego, and that a certain
parallelism of the phases of development of the ego and the
libido may also be assumed. Indeed, the disturbance of this
parallelism could become a pathological factor. One of the most
important insights we have to gain is the nature of the attitude
which the ego exhibits when an intensive fixation of its libido
is left behind in one stage of its development. It may coun-
tenance the fixation and accordingly become perverse or, what
amounts to the same thing, become infantile. Or it may be averse
to this attachment of the libido, the result of which is that
wherever the libido is subject to fixation, there the ego under-
goes suppression.

In this way we reach the conclusion that the third factor of
the etiology of neuroses is the tendency to conflict, upon which
the development both of the ego and libido are dependent. Our
insight into the causation of the neuroses has therefore been
amplified. First, the most generalized factor, self-denial, then
the fixation of the libido, by which it is forced into certain direc-
tions, and thirdly, the tendency to conflict in the development
of the ego, which has rejected libidinous impulses of this kind.
The state of affairs is therefore not so confused and difficult to
see through, as you may have imagined it to be in the course of
my explanation. But of course we are to discover that we have
not, as yet, reached the end. "We must add still a new factor
and further analyze one we already know.

To show you the influence of ego development in the formation
of a conflict, and so to give an illustration of the causation of
neuroses, I should like to cite an example which, although it is
entirely imaginary, is not far removed from probability in any
respect. Drawing upon the title of a farce by Nestroy, I shall
label this example "On the ground floor and in the first story."
The janitor lives on the ground floor, while the owner of the
house, a rich, distinguished man, occupies the first story. Both
have children, and we shall assume that the owner permits his
little daughter to play unwatched with the child of the people.
Then it may easily happen that the games of the children become
"naughty," that is, they assume a sexual character; they play
"father and mother," watch each other in the performance of

306 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

intimate performances and mutually stimulate their genitals.
The janitor's daughter, who, in spite of her five or six years of
age, has had occasion to make observations on the sexuality of
adults, probably played the part of the seducer. These experi-
ences, even though they be of short duration, are sufficient to
set in motion certain sexual impulses in both children, which
continue in the form of onanism for several years after the
common games have ceased. So far the consequences are similar ;
the final result will be very different. The janitor's daughter
will continue onanism possibly to the commencement of her
periods, abandon it then without difficulty, not many years later
find a lover, perhaps bear a child, choose this or that path of life,
which may likely enough make of her a popular artist who ends
as an aristocrat. Perhaps the outcome will be less brilliant, but
at any rate she will work out her life, free from neurosis, un-
harmed by her premature sexual activity. Very different is the
effect on the other child. Even while she is very young she
will realize vaguely that she has done wrong. In a short while,
perhaps only after a violent struggle, she will renounce the
gratification of onanism, yet still retain an undercurrent of
depression in her attitude. If, during her early childhood, she
chances to learn something about sexual intercourse, she will
turn away in explicable disgust and seek to remain innocent.
Probably she is at the time subjected anew to an irresistible im-
pulse to onanism, of which she does not dare to complain. "When
the time arrives for her to find favor in the eyes of a man,
a neurosis will suddenly develop and cheat her out of marriage
and the joy of life. When analysis succeeds in gaining insight
into this neurosis, it will reveal that this well-bred, intelligent
girl of high ideals, has completely suppressed her sexual desires,
but that unconsciously they cling to the meager experiences she
had with the friend of her childhood.

The difference of these two destinies, arising from the same
experience, is due to the fact that one ego has experienced de-
velopment while the other has not. The janitor's daughter in
later years looks upon sexual intercourse as the same natural
and harmless thing it had seemed in her childhood. The owner 's
daughter had experienced the influence of education and had
recognized its claims. Thus stimulated, her ego had forged its
ideals of womanly purity and lack of desire which, however,

Theories of Development and Regression 307

could not agree with any sexual activity; her intellectual de
velopment had made unworthy her interest in the woman's part
she was to play. This higher moral and intellectual evolution
of her ego was in conflict with the claims of her sexuality.

I should like to consider today one more point in the develop-
ment of the ego, partly because it opens wide vistas, partly
because it will justify the sharp, perhaps unnatural line of
division we are wont to draw between sexual and ego impulses.
In estimating the several developments of ego and of libido, we
must emphasize an aspect which has not frequently been appre-
ciated heretofore. Both the ego and the libido are fundamentally
heritages, abbreviated repetitions of an evolution which man-
kind has, in the course of long periods of time, traversed from
primeval ages. The libido shows its phylogenetic origin most
readily, I should say. Eecall, if you please, that in one class
of animals the genital apparatus is closely connected with the
mouth, that in another it cannot be separated from the excretory
apparatus, and in others it is attached to organs of locomotion.
Of all these things you will find a most fascinating description
in the valuable book of "W. Bolsche. Animals portray, so to
speak, all kinds of perversions which have become set as their
permanent sexual organizations. In man this phylogenetic aspect
is partly clouded by the circumstance that these activities, al-
though fundamentally inherited, are achieved anew in individ-
ual development, presumably because the same conditions still
prevail and still continue to exert their influence on each per-
sonality. I should say that originally they served to call forth
an activity, where they now serve only as a stimulus for recol-
lection. There is no doubt that in addition the course of develop-
ment in each individual, which has been innately determined,
may be disturbed or altered from without by recent influences.
That power which has forced this development upon mankind,
and which today maintains the identical pressure, is indeed
known to us : it is the same self-denial enforced by the realities —
or, given its big and actual name, Necessity, the struggle for
existence, the 'Avdyxn- This has been a severe teacher, but under
him we have become potent. The neurotics are those children
upon whom this severity has had a bad effect — but there is risk
in all education This appreciation of the struggle of life as

308 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the moving force of development need not prejudice us against
the importance of "innate tendencies in evolution" if their
existence can be proved.

It is worth noting that sexual instincts and instincts of self-
preservation do not behave similarly when they are confronted
with the necessities of actuality. It is easier to educate the
instincts of self-preservation and everything that is connected
with them ; they speedily learn to adapt themselves to necessity
and to arrange their development in accordance with the man-
dates of fact. That is easy to understand, for they cannot pro-
cure the objects they require in any other way; without these
objects the individual must perish. The sex instincts are more
difficult to educate because at the outset they do not suffer
from the need of an object. As they are related almost para-
sitically to the other functions of the body and gratify them-
selves auto-erotically by way of their own body, they are at
first withdrawn from the educational influence of real necessity.
In most people, they maintain themselves in some way or other
during the entire course of life as those characteristics of ob-
stinacy and inaccessibility to influence which are generally col-
lectively called unreasonableness. The education of youth gen-
erally comes to an end when the sexual demands are aroused
to their full strength. Educators know this and act accordingly ;
but perhaps the results of psychoanalysis will influence them to
transfer the greatest emphasis to the education of the early years,
of childhood, beginning with the suckling. The little human
being is frequently a finished product in his fourth or fifth year,
and only reveals gradually in later years what has long been
ready within him.

To appreciate the full significance of the aforementioned dif-
ference between the two groups of instincts, we must digress
considerably and introduce a consideration which we must needs
call economic. Thereby we enter upon one of the most important
but unfortunately one of the most obscure domains of psycho-
analysis. "We ask ourselves whether a fundamental purpose is
recognizable in the workings of our psychological apparatus,
and answer immediately that this purpose is the pursuit of
pleasurable excitement. It seems as if our entire psychological
activity were directed toward gaining pleasurable stimulation,

Theories of Development and Regression 309

toward avoiding painful ones ; that it is regulated automatically
by the principle of pleasure. Now we should like to know, above
all, what conditions cause the creation of pleasure and pain,
but here we fall short. We may only venture to say that pleasur-
able excitation in some way involves lessening, lowering or ob-
literating the amount of stimuli present in the psychic apparatus.
This amount, on the other hand, is increased by pain. Examina-
tion of the most intense pleasurable excitement accessible to mac,
the pleasure which accompanies the performance of the sexual
act, leaves small doubt on this point. Since such processes of
pleasure are concerned with the destinies of quantities of psychic
excitation or energy, we call considerations of this sort economic.
It thus appears that we can describe the tasks and performances
of the psychic apparatus in different and more generalized terms
than by the emphasis of the pursuit of pleasure. We may say
that the psychic apparatus serves the purpose of mastering and
bringing to rest the mass of stimuli and the stimulating forces
which approach it. The sexual instincts obviously show their
aim of pleasurable excitement from the beginning to the end of
their development; they retain this original function without
much change. The ego instincts strive at first for the same thing.
But through the influence of their teacher, necessity, the ego
instincts soon learn to adduce some qualification to the principle
of pleasure. The task of avoiding pain becomes an objective
almost comparable to the gain of pleasure; the ego learns that
its direct gratification is unavoidably withheld, the gain of
pleasurable excitement postponed, that always a certain amount
of pain must be borne and certain sources of pleasure entirely
relinquished. This educated ego has become "reasonable." It
is no longer controlled by the principle of pleasure, but by the
principle of fact, which at bottom also aims at pleasure, but
pleasure which is postponed and lessened by considerations of
fact.

The transition from the pleasure principle to that of fact is
the most important advance in the development of the ego. We
already know that the sexual instincts pass through this stage
unwillingly and late. We shall presently learn the consequence
to man of the fact that his sexuality admits of such a loose
relation to the external realities of his life. Yet one more

810 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

observation belongs here. Since the ego of man has, like the
libido, its history of evolution, you will not be surprised to hear
that there are ' ' ego-regressions, ' ' and you will want to know what
role this return of the ego to former phases of development plays
in neurotic disease.

TWENTY-THIRD LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

The Development of the Symptoms

IN the layman's eyes the symptom shows the nature of the
disease, and cure means removal of symptoms. The physi-
cian, however, finds it important to distinguish the symp-
toms from the disease and recognizes that doing away
with the symptoms is not necessarily curing the disease. Of
course, the only tangible thing left over after the removal of
the symptoms is the capacity to build new symptoms. Accord-
ingly, for the time being, let us accept the layman's viewpoint
and consider the understanding of the symptoms as equivalent
to the understanding of the sickness.

The symptoms, — of course, we are dealing here with psychic
(or psychogenic) symptoms, and psychic illness — are acts which
are detrimental to life as a whole, or which are at least useless ;
frequently they are obnoxious to the individual who performs
them and are accompanied by distaste and suffering. The prin-
cipal injury lies in the psychic exertion which they cost, and
in the further exertion needed to combat them. The price these
efforts exact may, when there is an extensive development of
the symptoms, bring about an extraordinary impoverishment of
the personality of the patient with respect to his available psychic
energy, and consequently cripple him in all the important tasks
of life. Since such an outcome is dependent on the amount of
energy so utilized, you will readily understand that "being
sick" is essentially a practical concept. But if you take a theo-
retical standpoint and disregard these quantitative relations,
you can readily say that we are all sick, or rather neurotic, since
the conditions favorable to the development of symptoms are
demonstrable also among normal persons.

As to the neurotic symptoms, we already know that they are
the result of a conflict aroused by a new form of gratifying the
libido. The two forces that have contended against each other
meet once more in the symptom ; they become reconciled through

311

312 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the compromise of a symptom development. That is why the
symptom is capable of such resistance; it is sustained from
both sides. We also know that one of the two partners to the
conflict is the unsatisfied libido, frustrated by reality, which
must now seek other means for its satisfaction. If reality re-
mains inflexible even where the libido is prepared to take another
object in place of the one denied it, the libido will then finally
be compelled to resort to regression and to seek gratification in
one of the earlier stages in its organizations already out-lived,
or by means of one of the objects given up in the past. Along
the path of regression the libido is enticed by fixations which
it has left behind at these stages in its development.

Here the development toward perversion branches off sharply
from that of the neuroses. If the regressions do not awaken the
resistance of the ego, then a neurosis does not follow and the
libido arrives at some actual, even if abnormal, satisfaction. The
ego, however, controls not alone consciousness, but also the ap-
proaches to motor innervation, and hence the realization of
psychic impulses. If the ego then does not approve this regres-
sion, the conflict takes place. The libido is locked out, as it were,
and must seek refuge in some place where it can find an outlet
for its fund of energy, in accordance with the controlling de-
mands for pleasurable gratification. It must withdraw from the
ego. Such an evasion is offered by the fixations established in
the course of its evolution and now traversed regressively,
against which the ego had, at the time, protected itself by sup-
pressions. The libido, streaming back, occupies these suppressed
positions and thus withdraws from before the ego and its laws.
At the same time, however, it throws off all the influences ac-
quired under its tutelage. The libido could be guided so long
as there was a possibility of its being satisfied ; under the double
pressure of external and internal denial it becomes unruly and
harks back to former and more happy times. Such is its charac-
ter, fundamentally unchangeable. The ideas which the libido
now takes over in order to hold its energy belong to the system
of the unconscious, and are therefore subject to its peculiar
processes, especially elaboration and displacement. Conditions
are set up here which are entirely comparable to those of dream
formation. Just as the latent dream, the fulfillment of a wish-

The Development of the Symptoms 313

phantasy, is first built up in the unconsciousness, but must then
pass through conscious processes before, censored and approved,
it can enter into the compromise construction of the manifest
dream, so the ideas representing the libido in the unconscious
must still contend against the power of the fore-conscious ego.
The opposition that has arisen against it in the ego follows it
down by a "counter-siege" and forces it to choose such an
expression as will serve at the same time to express itself. Thus,
then, the symptom comes into being as a much distorted offshoot
from the unconscious libidinous wish-fulfillment, an artificially
selected ambiguity — with two entirely contradictory meanings.
In this last point alone do we realize a difference between dream
and symptom development, for the only fore-conscious purpose
in dream formation is the maintenance of sleep, the exclusion
from consciousness of anything which may disturb sleep; but
it does not necessarily oppose the unconscious wish impulse with
an insistent "No." Quite the contrary; the purpose of the
dream may be more tolerant, because the situation of the sleeper
is a less dangerous one. The exit to reality is closed only
through the condition of sleep.

You see, this evasion which the libido finds under the condi-
tions of the conflict is possible only by virtue of the existing
fixations,, When these fixations are taken in hand by the re-
gression, the suppression is side-tracked and the libido, which
must maintain itself under the conditions of the compromise, is
led off or gratified. By means of such a detour by way of the
unconscious and the old fixations, the libido has at last succeeded
in breaking its way through to some sort of gratification, how-
ever extraordinarily limited this may seem and however un-
recognizable any longer as a genuine satisfaction. Now allow me
to add two further remarks concerning this final result. In the
first place, I should like you to take note of the intimate connec-
tion between the libido and the unconscious on the one hand, and
on the other of the ego, consciousness, and reality. The connec-
tion that is evidenced here, however, does not indicate that origi-
nally they in any way belong together. I should like you to
bear continually in mind that everything I have said here, and
all that will follow, pertains only to the symptom development
of hysterical neurosis.

Where, now, can the libido find the fixations which it must
have in order to force its way through the suppressions ? In the

314 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

activities and experiences of infantile sexuality, in its abandoned
component-impulses, its childish objects which have been given
up. The libido again returns to them. The significance of this
period of childhood is a double one; on the one hand, the in-
stinctive tendencies which were congenital in the child first
showed themselves at this time; secondly, at the same time,
environmental influences and chance experiences were first
awakening his other instincts. I believe our right to establish
this bipartite division cannot be questioned. The assertion that
the innate disposition plays a part is hardly open to criticism,
but analytic experience actually makes it necessary for us to
assume that purely accidental experiences of childhood are
capable of leaving fixations of the libido. I do not see any
theoretical difficulties here. Congenital tendencies undoubtedly
represent the after-effects of the experiences of an earlier an-
cestry; they must also have once been acquired; without such
acquired characters there could be no heredity. And is it con-
ceivable that the inheritance of such acquired characters comes
to a standstill in the very generation that we have under ob-
servation? The significance of infantile experience, however,
should not, as is so often done, be completely ignored as com-
pared with ancestral experiences or those of our adult years ; on
the contrary, they should meet with an especial appreciation.
They have such important results because they occur in the
period of uncompleted development, and because of this very
fact are in a position to cause a traumatic effect. The researches
on the mechanics of development by Koux and others have shown
us that a needle prick into an embryonic cell mass which is
undergoing division results in most serious developmental dis-
turbances. The same injury to a larva or a completed animal can
be borne without injury.

The libido fixation of adults, which we have referred to as
representative of the constitutional factor in the etiological com-
parison of the neuroses, can be thought of, so far as we are con-
cerned, as divisible into two separate factors, the inherited
disposition and the tendency acquired in early childhood. "We
know that a schematic representation is most acceptable to the
student. Let us combine these relations as follows :

The Development of the Symptoms 315

Disposition as accidental

Cause of the determined by experiences

neurosis — libido fixation + (traumatic

element)

Sexual constitution Infantile ex-

(pre-historic experience) perience

The hereditary sexual constitution provides us with manifold
tendencies, varying with the special emphasis given one or the
other component of the instinct, either individually or in com-
bination. With the factor of infantile experience, there is again
built up a complementary series within the sexual constitution
which is perfectly comparable with our first series, namely, the
gradations between disposition and the chance experiences of the
adult. Here again we find the same extreme cases and similar
relations in the matter of substitution. At this point the ques-
tion becomes pertinent as to whether the most striking regres-
sions of the libido, those which hark back to very early stages
in sexual organization, are not essentially conditioned by the
hereditary constitutional factor. The answer to this question,
however, may best be put off until we are in a position to con-
sider a wider range in the forms of neurotic disease.

Let us devote a little time to the consideration of the fact
that analytic investigation of neurotics shows the libido to be
bound up with the infantile sexual experiences of these persons.
In this light they seem of enormous importance for both the
life and health of mankind. With respect to therapeutic work
their importance remains undiminished. But when we do not
take this into account we can herein readily recognize the danger
of being misled by the situation as it exists in neurotics into
adopting a mistaken and one-sided orientation toward life. In
figuring the importance of the infantile experiences we must also
subtract the influences arising from the fact that the libido has
returned to them by regression, after having been forced out of
its later positions. Thus we approach the opposite conclusion,
that experiences of the libido had no importance whatever in
their own time, but rather acquired it at the time of regression.
You will remember that we were led to a similar alternative in
the discussion of the Oedipus-complex.

316 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

A decision on this matter will hardly be difficult for us. The
statement is undoubtedly correct that the hold which the in-
fantile experiences have on the libido — with the pathogenic
influences this involves — is greatly augmented by the regression ;
still, to allow them to become definitive would nevertheless be
misleading. Other considerations must be taken into account as
well. In the first place, observation shows, in a way that leaves
no room for doubt, that infantile experiences have their par-
ticular significance which is evidenced already during child-
hood. There are, furthermore, neuroses in children in which
the factor of displacement in time is necessarily greatly mini-
mized or is entirely lacking, since the illness follows as an imme-
diate consequence of the traumatic experience. The study of
these infantile neuroses keeps- us from many dangerous mis-
understandings of adult neuroses, just as the dreams of children
similarly serve as the key to the understanding of the dreams
of adults. As a matter of fact, the neuroses of children are
very frequent, far more frequent than is generally believed.
They are often overlooked, dismissed as signs of badness or
naughtiness, and often suppressed by the authority of the
nursery; in retrospect, however, they may be easily recognized
later. They occur most frequently in the form of anxiety hys-
teria. What this implies we shall learn upon another occasion.
When a neurosis breaks out in later life, analysis regularly
shows that it is a direct continuation of that infantile malady
which had perhaps developed only obscurely and incipiently.
However, there are cases, as already stated, in which this childish
nervousness continues, without any interruption, as a lifelong
affliction. We have been able to analyze a very few examples
of such neuroses during childhood, while they were actually
going on ; much more often we had to be satisfied with obtaining
our insight into the childhood neurosis subsequently, when the
patient is already well along in life, under conditions in which
we are forced to work with certain corrections and under definite
precautions.

Secondly, we must admit that the universal regression of the
libido to the period of childhood would be inexplicable if there
were nothing there which could exert an attraction for it. The
fixation which we assume to exist towards specific developmental
phases, conveys a meaning only if we think of it as stabilizing

The Development of the Symptoms 317

a definite amount of libidinous energy. Finally, I am able to
remind you that here there exists a complementary relationship
between the intensity and the pathogenic significance of the in-
fantile experiences to the later ones which is similar to that
studied in previous series. There are cases in which the entire
causal emphasis falls upon the sexual experiences of childhood,
in which these impressions take on an effect which is unmis-
takably traumatic and in which no other basis exists for them
beyond what the average sexual constitution and its immaturity
can offer. Side by side with these there are others in which the
whole stress is brought to bear by the later conflicts, and the
emphasis the analysis places on childhood impressions appears
entirely as the work of regression. There are also extremes of
"retarded development" and "regression," and between them
every combination in the interaction of the two factors.

These relations have a certain interest for that pedagogy
which assumes as its object the prevention of neuroses by an
early interference in the sexual development of the child. So
long as we keep our attention fixed essentially on the infantile
sexual experiences, we readily come to believe we have done
everything for the prophylaxis of nervous afflictions when we
have seen to it that this development is retarded, and that the
child is spared this type of experience. Yet we already know
that the conditions for the causation of neuroses are more com-
plicated and cannot in general be influenced through one single
factor. The strict protection in childhood loses its value be-
cause it is powerless against the constitutional factor; further-
more, it is more difficult to carry out than the educators imagine,
and it brings with it two new dangers that cannot be lightly
dismissed. It accomplishes too much, for it favors a degree
of sexual suppression which is harmful for later years, and it
Bends the child into life without the power to resist the violent
onset of sexual demands that must be expected during puberty.
The profit, therefore, which childhood prophylaxis can yield
is most dubious; it seems, indeed, that better success in the
prevention of neuroses can be gained by attacking the problem
through a changed attitude toward facts.

Let us return to the consideration of the symptoms. They
serve as substitutes for the gratification which has been forborne,
by a regression of the libido to earlier days, with a return to

318 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

former development phases in their choice of object and in their
organization. "We learned some time ago that the neurotic is
held fast somewhere in his past ; we now know that it is a period
of his past in which his libido did not miss the satisfaction which
made him happy. He looks for such a time in his life until he has
found it, even though he must hark back to his suckling days as
he retains them in his memory or as he reconstructs them
in the light of later influences. The symptom in some
way again yields the old infantile form of satisfaction, distorted
by the censoring work of the conflict. As a rule it is converted
into a sensation of suffering and fused with other causal elements
of the disease. The form of gratification which the symptom
yields has much about it that alienates one's sympathy. In this
we omit to take into account, however, the fact that the patients
do not recognize the gratification as such and experience the
apparent satisfaction rather as suffering, and complain of it.
This transformation is part of the psychic conflict under the
pressure of which the symptom must be developed. What was
at one time a satisfaction for the individual must now awaken
his antipathy or disgust. We know a simple but instructive
example for such a change of feeling. The same child that
sucked the milk with such voracity from its mother's breast is
apt to show a strong antipathy for milk a few years later, which
is often difficult to overcome. This antipathy increases to the
point of disgust when the milk, or any substituted drink, has a
little skin over it. It is rather hard to throw out the suggestion
that this skin calls up the memory of the mother's breast, which
was once so intensely coveted. In the meantime, to be sure,
the traumatic experience of weaning has intervened.

There is something else that makes the symptoms appear re-
markable and inexplicable as a means of libidinous satisfaction.
They in no way recall anything from which we normally are
in the habit of expecting satisfaction. They usually require
no object, and thereby give up all connection with external
reality. We understand this to be a result of turning away
from fact and of returning to the predominance of pleasurable
gratification. But it is also a return to a sort of amplified auto-
eroticism, such as was yielded the sex impulse in its earliest
satisfactions. In the place of a modification in the outside
world, we have a physical change, in other words, an internal

The Development of the Symptoms 319

reaction in place of an external one, an adjustment instead of
an activity. Viewed from a phylogenetic standpoint, this ex-
presses a very significant regression. We will grasp this better
when we consider it in connection with a new factor which we
are still to discover from the analytic investigation of symptom
development. Further, we recall that in symptom formation
the same processes of the unconscious have been at work as in
dream formation — elaboration and displacement. Similarly to
the dream, the symptom represents a fulfillment, a satisfaction
after the manner of the infantile ; by the utmost elaboration this
satisfaction can be compressed into a single sensation or inner-
vation, or by extreme displacement it may be restricted to a tiny
element of the entire libidinous complex. It is no wonder that
we often have difficulties in recognizing in the symptom the
libidinous satisfaction which we anticipate and always find
verified.

I have indicated that we must still become familiar with a
new factor. It is something really surprising and confusing.
You know that by analysis of the symptoms we arrive at a
knowledge of the infantile experiences upon which the libido is
fixated and out of which the symptoms are formed. "Well, the
surprising thing is this, that these infantile scenes are not always
true. Indeed, in the majority of cases they are untrue, and in
some instances they are directly contrary to historical truth.
You see that this discovery, as no other, serves either to dis-
credit the analysis which has led to such a result, or to discredit
the patients upon whose testimony the analysis, as well as the
whole understanding of neuroses, is built up. In addition there
is something else utterly confusing about it. If the infantile
experiences, revealed by analysis, were in every case real, we
should have the feeling of walking on sure ground ; if they were
regularly falsified, disclosed themselves as inventions or phan-
tasies of the patients, we should have to leave this uncertain
ground and find a surer footing elsewhere. But it is neither the
one nor the other, for when we look into the matter we find
that the childhood experiences which are recalled or recon-
structed in the course of the analysis may in some instances
be false, in others undeniably true, and in the majority of cases
a mixture of truth and fiction. The symptoms then are either
the representation of actual experiences to which we may ascribe

320 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

an influence in the fixation of the libido, or the representation
of phantasies of the patient which, of course, can be of no etiologi-
cal significance. It is hard to find one's way here. The first
foothold is given perhaps by an analogous discovery, namely,
that the same scattered childhood memories that individuals
always have had and have been conscious of prior to an analysis
may be falsified as well, or at least may contain a generous
mixture of true and false. Evidence of error very seldom offers
difficulties, and we at least gain the satisfaction of knowing
that the blame for this unexpected disappointment is not to be
laid at the door of analysis, but in some way upon the patients.

After reflecting a bit we can easily understand what is so
confusing in this matter. It is the slight regard for reality,
the neglect to keep fact distinct from phantasy. We are apt to
feel insulted that the patient has wasted our time with invented
tales. There is an enormous gap in our thinking between reality
and invention and we accord an entirely different valuation to
reality. The patient, too, takes this same viewpoint in his
normal thinking. When he offers the material which, by way of
the symptom, leads back to the wish situations which are
modeled upon the childhood experiences, we are at first, to be
sure, in doubt whether we are dealing with reality or with
phantasy. Later certain traits determine this decision; we are
confronted with the task of acquainting the patient with them.
This can never be accomplished without difficulty. If at the
outset we tell him that he is going to reveal phantasies with which
he has veiled his childhood history, just as every people weaves
myths around its antiquity, we notice (to our comfort) that his
interest in the further pursuit of the subject suddenly di-
minishes. He, too, wants to discover realities, and despises all
"notions." But if until this is accomplished we allow him
to believe that we are investigationg the actual occurrences of
his childhood, we run the risk of later being charged with error
and with our apparent gullibility. For a long time he is un-
able to reconcile himself to the idea of considering phantasy and
reality on equal terms and he tends, with reference to the
childish experiences to be explained, to neglect for the time
being the difference between the real and the imaginary. And
yet this is obviously the only correct attitude toward these
psychological products because they are, in a sense, real. It is

The Development of the Symptoms 321

a fact that the patient is able to create such phantasies for him-
self, and this is of scarcely less importance for his neurosis than
if he had really undergone the experience which he imagines.
These phantasies possess psychological reality in contrast to
physical reality, and so we gradually come to understand that
in the realm of neuroses the psychological reality is the deter-
mining factor.

Among the experiences which recur continually in the early
history of neurotics and, in fact, are never lacking, some are
of particular significance and accordingly I consider them
worthy of special treatment. I shall enumerate a few examples
of this species : observation of the parental intercourse, seduction
by an adult, and the threat of castration. It would be a
grievous error to assume that physical reality can never be
accorded them; this may often be proved beyond doubt by the
testimony of adult relatives. So, for example, it is not at all
unusual if the little boy who begins to play with his penis, and
does not yet know that one must conceal this, is threatened by
his parents or nurse with the cutting off of the organ or the
guilty hand. Parents often admit upon questioning that they
thought they had done the right thing by this intimidation;
many individuals retain a correct, conscious memory of these
threats, especially if it has occurred in later childhood. When
the mother or some other woman makes the threat she usually
delegates the responsibility of executing it to the father or to
the doctor. In the famous Struwwelpeter by the podiatrist
Hoffman, of Frankfort, rhymes which owe their popularity to
his very fine understanding of the sexual and other complexes
of childhood, you find a milder substitute for castration in the
cutting off of the thumbs as a punishment for insistent sucking.
But it is highly improbable that the threat of castration is
actually made as often as it occurs in the analyses of neurotics.
We are content to understand that the child imaginatively con-
structs this threat for himself from suggestions, from the knowl-
edge that auto-erotic satisfaction is forbidden, and from the
impression of castration he has received in discovering the fe-
male genital. It is, moreover, in no way impossible that the
little child, so long as he is not credited with any understanding
or memory, will, even in families outside the proletariat, become
a witness to the sexual act between his parents or some other

322 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

group-lips, and it cannot be disproved that the child subse-
quently understands this impression, and may react upon it.
But when this intercourse is described with minute details which
could hardly have been observed, or if it turns out to be, as it
so frequently does, an intercourse which was not face to face,
more ferarum, there is no longer any doubt that this phantasy
is derived from the observation of the intercourse of animals
(dogs) and the unsatisfied curiosity of the child in his period
of puberty. The greatest feat of the imagination is the phantasy
of having witnessed the coitus of the parents while still unborn
in the mother's womb. Of especial interest is the phantasy of
having been seduced, because so often it is not a phantasy at all,
but a real memory. But luckily it is not real so often as first
appears from the results of analysis. Seduction by older chil-
dren, or children of the same age, is much more frequent than
seduction by adults, and if, in the case of little girls, the father
quite regularly appears as the seducer in the occurrences which
they relate, neither the fantastic nature of this accusation nor
its motive can be doubted. The child as a rule covers the auto-
erotic period of his sexual activity, where there has been no
actual seduction, with the seduction-phantasy. He spares himself
the shame of onanism by imagining the presence of an object for
his desires in that early period. As a matter of fact, you must
not be misled in attributing sexual misuse of the child by its
nearest male relatives solely and always to phantasy. Most
analysts have probably treated cases in which such relations were
real and could be proved beyond doubt, with the qualification
that in such cases they belong to the later years of childhood and
were transposed to an earlier time.

"We cannot avoid the impression that such experiences of child-
hood are in some way necessary to the neurosis, that they are
claimed by its iron rule. If they exist in reality, then well and
good, but if reality has withheld them they are constructed from
suggestions and supplemented by the imagination. The result
is the same, and to this day we have been unable to trace any
difference in the results, whether fancy or fact played the
larger part in these childish occurrences. Here again we en-
counter one of the complementary relationships so frequently
met with; it is, to be sure, the most estranging of all those we
have become acquainted with. "Whence comes the need for these

The Development of the Symptoms 323

phantasies, and the material for them? There can be no doubt
as to the sources of the impulse, but we must explain why the
same phantasies are always created with the same content. I
have an answer in readiness which I know you will think very
far-fetched. I am of the opinion that these primal phantasies —
so I should like to term these, and certainly some others also—
are a phylogenetic possession. In them the individual reaches
out beyond his own life, into the experiences of antiquity, where
his own experience has become all too rudimentary. It seems
very possible to me that everything which is obtained during
an analysis in the guise of phantasy, the seduction of children,
the release of sexual excitement by watching parental inter-
course, the threat of castration— or rather castration itself —
were once realities in the primeval existence of mankind and
that the imaginative child is merely filling in the gaps of
individual truth with prehistoric truth. We have again and
again suspected that the psychology of neuroses stores up more
of the antiquities of human development than all other sources.

What we have just discussed makes it necessary for us to enter
further into the origin and significance of that mental activity
that is called imagination. As you well know, it enjoys universal
esteem, although we have never clearly understood its place in
the psychic life. I have this much to say about it. As you
know, the ego of man is slowly educated by the influence of
external necessity to an appreciation of reality and a pursuit
of the principle of reality, and must therefore renounce tem-
porarily or permanently various objects and goals of its strivings
for satisfaction, sexual and otherwise. But renunciation of
gratification has always been difficult for man. He cannot ac-
complish it without something in the nature of compensation.
Accordingly he has reserved for himself a psychological activity
wherein all these abandoned sources of pleasures and means of
pleasurable gratification are granted a further existence, a form
of existence in which they are freed from the requirements of
reality and what we like to call the test of reality. Every im-
pulse is soon transformed into the form of its own fulfillment.
There is no doubt that dwelling on the imagined fulfillment of a
given wish affords some satisfaction, although the realization that
it is unreal is unobscured. In the activity of the imagination,
man enjoys that freedom from external compulsion that he has

324 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

long since renounced. He has made it possible to be alternately
a pleasure-seeking animal and a reasoning human being. He
finds that the scant satisfaction that he can force out of reality
is not enough. "There is no getting along without auxiliary-
constructions," Th. Fontaine once said. The creation of the
psychic realm of fancy has its complete counterpart in the estab-
lishment of "preserves" and "conservation projects" in those
places where the demands of husbandry, traffic and industry
threaten quickly to change the original face of the earth into
something unrecognizable. The national reserves maintain this
old condition of things, which otherwise has everywhere been
regretfully sacrificed to necessity. Everything may grow and
spread there as it will, even that which is useless and harmful.
The psychic realm of phantasy is such a reservation withdrawn
from the principles of reality.

The best known productions of phantasy are the so-called "day
dreams/' which we already know, pictured satisfactions of am-
bitious, of covetous and erotic wishes, which flourish the more
grandly the more reality admonishes them to modesty and
patience. There is unmistakably shown in them the nature of
imaginative happiness, the restoration of the independence of
pleasurable gratification from the acquiescence of reality. We
know such day dreams are nuclei and models for the dreams of
night. The night dream is essentially nothing but a day dream,
distorted by the nocturnal forms of psychological activity, and
made available by the freedom which the night gives to in-
stinctive impulses. "We have already become acquainted with
the idea that a day dream is not necessarily conscious, that there
are also unconscious day dreams. Such unconscious day dreams
are as much the source of night dreams as of neurotic symptoms.

The significance of phantasy for the development of symptoms
will become clear to you by the following : We have said that in
a case of renunciation, the libido occupies regressively the posi-
tions once abandoned by it, to which, nevertheless, it has clung
in certain ways. We shall neither retract this statement nor
correct it, but we shall insert a missing link. How does the
libido find its way to these points of fixation? Well, every
object and tendency of the libido that has been abandoned, is
not abandoned in every sense of the word. They, or their
derivatives, are still held in presentations of the phantasy, with a

The Development of the Symptoms 325

certain degree of intensity. The libido need only retire to the
imagination in order to find from them the open road to all sup-
pressed fixations. These phantasies were happy under a sort of
tolerance, there was no conflict between them and the ego, no
matter how acute the contrast, so long as a certain condition
was observed — a condition quantitative in nature that is now
disturbed by the flowing back of the libido to the phantasies. By
this addition the accumulation of energy in the phantasies is
heightened to such a degree that they become assertive and
develop a pressure in the direction of realization. But that
makes a conflict between them and the ego inevitable. Whether
formerly conscious or unconscious, they now are subject to sup-
pression by the ego and are victims to the attraction of the
unconscious. The libido wanders from phantasies now uncon-
scious to their sources in unconsciousness, and back to its own
points of fixation.

The return of the libido to phantasy is an intermediate step
on the road to symptom development and well deserves a special
designation. C. G. Jung coined for it the very appropriate
name of introversion, but inappropriately he also lets it stand
for other things. Let us therefore retain the idea that intro-
version signifies the turning aside of the libido from the possi-
bilities of actual satisfaction and the excessive accumulation of
the phantasies hitherto tolerated as harmless. An introvert is
not yet a neurotic, but he finds himself in a labile situation ; he
must develop symptoms at the next dislocation of forces, if he
does not find other outlets for his pent-up libido. The intangible
nature of neurotic satisfaction and the neglect of the difference
between imagination and reality are already determined by
arrest in the phase of introversion.

You have certainly noticed that in the last discussions I have
introduced a new factor into the structure of the etiological
chain, namely, the quantity, the amount of energy that comes
under consideration. We must always take this factor into
account. Purely qualitative analysis of the etiological conditions
is not suifieient. Or, to put it in another way, a dynamic concep-
tion alone of these psychic processes is not enough ; there is need
of an economic viewpoint. We must say to ourselves that the
conflict between two impulses is not released before certain
occupation-intensities have been reached, even though the quali«

326 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

tative conditions have long been potent. Similarly, the patho.
genie significance of the constitutional factors is guided by
how much more of a given component impulse is present in the
predisposition over and above that of another; one can even
conceive the predispositions of all men to be qualitatively the
same and to be differentiated only by these quantitative condi-
tions. The quantitative factor is no less important for the power
of resistance against neurotic ailments. It depends upon what
amount of unused libido a person can. hold freely suspended,
and upon how large a fraction of the libido he is able to direct
from the sexual path to the goal of sublimation. The final goal
of psychological activity, which may be described qualitatively
as striving towards pleasure-acquisition and avoidance of un-
pleasantness, presents itself in the light of economic considera-
tions as the task of overcoming the gigantic stimuli at work in
the psychological apparatus, and to prevent those obstructions
which cause unpleasantness.

So much I wanted to tell you about symptom development
in the neuroses. Yes, but do not let me neglect to emphasize this
especially: everything I have said here relates to the symptom
development in hysteria. Even in compulsion neuroses, which
retain the same fundamentals, much is found that is different.
The counter-siege directed against the claims of the instincts,
of which we have spoken in connection with hysteria, press to
the fore in compulsion neuroses, and control the clinical picture
by means of so-called "reaction-formations." The same kind
and more far-reaching variations are discoverable among the
other neuroses, where the investigations as to the mechanism of
symptom development have in no way been completed.

Before I leave you today I should like to have your attention
for a while for an aspect of imaginative life which is worthy
of the most general interest. For there is a way back from
imagination to reality and that is — art. The artist is an incipient
introvert who is not far from being a neurotic. He is impelled
by too powerful instinctive needs. He wants to achieve honor,
power, riches, fame and the love of women. But he lacks the
means of achieving these satisfactions. So like any other un-
satisfied person, he turns away from reality, and transfers all
his interests, his libido, too, to the elaboration of his imaginary
wishes, all of which might easily point the way to neurosis. A

The Development of the Symptoms 327

great many factors must combine to present this termination of
his development; it is well known how often artists especially
suffer from a partial inhibition of their capacities through
neurosis. Apparently their constitutions are strongly endowed
with an ability to sublimize and to shift the suppression deter-
mining their conflicts. The artist finds the way back to reality
in this way. He is not the only one who has a life of imagination.
The twilight-realm of phantasy is upheld by the sanction of
humanity and every hungry soul looks here for help and sym-
pathy. But for those who are not artists, the ability to obtain
satisfaction from imaginative sources is very restricted. Their
relentless suppressions force them to be satisfied with the sparse
day dreams which may become conscious. If one is a real artist
he has more at his disposal. In the first place, he understands
how to elaborate his day dreams so that they lose their essentially
personal element, which would repel strangers, and yield satis-
faction to others as well. He also knows how to disguise them so
that they do not easily disclose their origin in their despised
sources. He further possesses the puzzling ability of molding
a specific material into a faithful image of the creatures of his
imagination, and then he is able to attach to this representation
of his unconscious phantasies so much pleasurable gratification
that, for a time at least, it is able to outweigh and release the
suppressions. If he is able to accomplish all this, he makes it
possible for others, in their return, to obtain solace and consola-
tion from their own unconscious sources of gratification which
had become inaccessible. He wins gratitude and admiration for
himself and so, by means of his imagination, achieves the very
things which had at first only an imaginary existence for him?
honor, power, and the love of women.

TWENTY-FOURTH LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

Ordinary Nervousness

IN our last discussion we accomplish a difficult task,
Now I shall temporarily leave our subject and address
myself to you.

For I know quite well that you are dissatisfied. You
thought that an introduction to psychoanalysis would be quite
a different matter. You expected to hear vivid illustrations
instead of theories. You will tell me that when I gave you the
illustration of "on the ground floor in the first story," you
had grasped something of the causation of neurosis, only of
course this should have been a real observation and not an
imaginary story. Or, when in the beginning I described two
symptoms (not imaginary also, let us hope) whose analysis
revealed a close connection with the life of the patient, you first
came to grasp the meaning of the symptoms and you hoped
that I would proceed in the same way. Instead I have given
you theories — lengthy, difficult to see in perspective and incom-
plete, to which something new was constantly being added.
I worked with conceptions that I had not previously presented
to you, abandoned descriptive for dynamic conceptions, and these
in turn for economic ones. I made it hard for you to understand
how many of the artificial terms I made use of still carry the
same meaning and are used interchangeably only for the sake
of euphony. Finally, I allowed broad conceptions to pass in
review before you: the principles of pleasure and of fact and
their phylogenetically inherited possession; and then, instead
of introducing you to definite facts, I allowed them to become
increasingly vague till they seemed to fade into dim distances.

Why did I not begin my introduction to the theory of neurosis
with the facts that you yourselves know about nervousness, with
something that has always aroused your interest, with the

338

Ordinary Nervousness 329

peculiar temperament of nervous people, their incomprehensible
reactions to external influences, to human intercourse, their irri-
tability, their uselessness ? Why did I not lead you step by step
from the understanding of simple, everyday forms to the prob-
lems of mysterious and extreme manifestations of nervousness?

I cannot even say that you are wrong. I am not so infatuated
with my art of representation as to see some special attraction
in every blemish. I myself believe that I could have proceeded
differently, to your better advantage, and this indeed had been
my intention. But one cannot always carry out one 's sensible in-
tentions. The nature of the subject matter issues its own com-
mands, and easily modifies our plans. Even so usual a per-
formance as the organization of well-known material is not
entirely subject to the particular purposes of the author. It
forms itself as it will and later one wonders why it turned out
so and not otherwise.

Probably one of the reasons is that the title, A General Intro-
duction to Psychoanalysis, no longer applies to this part, which
deals with the neuroses. The introduction to psychoanalysis is
found in the study of errors and the dream; the theory of
neurosis is psychoanalysis itself. I do not think that in so short
a time I could have given you a knowledge of the theory of
neurosis other than in concentrated form. It was necessary to
present to you connectedly the meaning and interpretation of the
symptoms, their external and internal conditions and their bear-
ing on the mechanism of symptom formation. This I have at-
tempted to do ; it is practically the nucleus of the material that
modern psychoanalysis is able to offer. We had to say quite a
good deal concerning the libido and its development, and some-
thing as well concerning the development of the ego. The intro-
duction had already prepared you for the presuppositions of our
technique, for the large aspects of the unconscious and of sup-
pression (resistance). In a subsequent lecture you will learn
from what points psychoanalysis proceeds organically. For the
present I have not sought to hide from you the fact that all our
results are based on the study of a single group of nervous af-
fections, the so-called transference neuroses. Though you have
gained no positive knowledge and have not retained every detail,
still I hope that you have a fair picture of the methods, the
problems and the results of psychoanalysis.

330 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

I have assumed that it was your wish for me to begin my
presentation of neuroses with a description of nervous behavior,
the nature of neurotic suffering, and the way in which the
nervous meet the conditions of their illness and adapt themselves
to these. Such subject matter is certainly interesting and well
worth knowing. It is moreover not very hard to handle, yet
it is not wise to begin with its consideration. There is danger
of not discovering the unconscious, of overlooking the great sig-
nificance of the libido, of judging all conditions as they appear
to the ego of the nervous person. It is obvious that this ego
is neither a reliable nor an impartial authority. For this very
ego is the force that denies and suppresses the unconscious;
When the unconscious is concerned, how then could we expect
justice to be done ? The rejected claims of sexuality stand first
in the line of these suppressions; it is natural that from the
standpoint of the ego we can never learn their extent and sig-
nificance. As soon as we attain to the point of view of suppres-
sion, we are sufficiently warned not to make one of the contend-
ing factions, above all not to make the victor judge of the
struggle. We are prepared to find that the testimony of the ego
may lead us astray. If one is to believe the evidence of the ego,
it would appear to have been active all along, all its symptoms
would have been actively willed and formed. Yet we know that
it has passively allowed a great deal to occur, a fact which it
subsequently seeks to conceal and to palliate. To be sure, it
does not always attempt this ; in the case of the symptoms of com-
pulsion neurosis it must admit that it is being opposed by some-
thing alien, which it can resist only with difficulty.

"Whoever does not heed these warnings not to mistake the
prevarications of the ego for truth, has clear sailing; he avoids
all the resistances which oppose the psychoanalytic emphasis
upon the unconscious, on sexuality, and on the passiveness of
the ego. He will assert with Alfred Adler that the "nervous
character" is the cause instead of the result of the neurosis,
but he will not be able to explain a single detail of symptom
formation or to interpret a single dream.

You will ask : Is it not possible to do justice to the part the
ego plays in nervousness and in symptom formation without
crudely neglecting the factors revealed by psychoanalysis? I
answer you: Surely it must be possible and at some time or

Ordinary Nervousness 331

other it will take place ; but the methods by which we organize
the work of psychoanalysis do not favor our beginning with
just this task. "We can foresee the time when this task will
claim the attention of psychoanalysis. There are forms of
neuroses, the so-called narcistic neuroses, in which the ego
is far more deeply involved than in anything we have studied
heretofore. The analytic investigation of these conditions will
enable us to judge reliably and impartially the part that the
ego plays in neurotic illness.

One of the relations which the ego bears to its neurosis is so
obvious that it must be considered at the very outset. In no
case does it seem to be absent, and it is most clearly recog-
nizable in the traumatic neuroses, conditions which we do not as
yet clearly understand. You must know that in the causation
and mechanisms of all possible forms of neurosis, the same
factors are active again and again ; it is only the emphasis that
is shifted from one to the other of these factors in symptom
formation. The members of a company of actors each have
certain parts to play — hero, villain, confidant, etc. — yet each will
select a different drama for his benefit. Thus the phantasies
which undergo conversion into symptoms are especially easy to
detect in hysteria ; compulsion neuroses are essentially dominated
by the reactionary formations, or counter-seizures of the ego;
what we designate as secondary elaboration in dreams dominates
paranoia in the form of delusions, etc.

In traumatic neuroses, particularly if they are caused by the
horrors of war, we are especially impressed by a selfish ego-
impulse which seeks protection and personal advantage. This
in itself is not a sufficient cause for illness, but it can favor its
beginning and also feed its needs once it has been established.
This motive serves to protect the ego from the dangers whose
imminence precipitated the disease, and does not permit con-
valescence until the recurrence of these dangers seems impos-
sible, or until compensation has been obtained for the danger
that has been undergone.

But the ego betrays similar interest in the origin and main-
tenance of all other neuroses. We have already said that the
ego suffers the symptom to exist, because one of its phases grati-
fies the egoistic tendency toward suppression. Besides, the end-
ing of the conflict by means of symptom development is the

332 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

path of least resistance, and a most convenient solution for the
principle of pleasure. Through symptom formation the ego is
undoubtedly spared a severe and unpleasant inner task. There
are cases where even the physician must admit that the resolu-
tion of the conflict into neurosis is the most harmless outcome
and one most easily tolerated by society. Do not be surprised,
then, to learn that occasionally even the physician takes the
part of the illness he is battling against. He does not have to
restrict himself to the role of the fanatic warrior for health in
all situations of life. He knows that the world contains not
only neurotic misery, but also real, incurable suffering. He
knows that necessity may even require a human being to sacrifice
his health, and he learns that by this sacrifice on the part of one
individual untold wretchedness may be spared for many others.
So if we say that the neurotic escapes the conflict by taking
refuge in illness, we must admit that in some cases this escape
is justifiable, and the physician who has diagnosed the state of
affairs will retire silently and tactfully.

But let us not consider these special cases in our further
discussion. In average cases the ego, by having recourse to
neurosis, obtains a certain inner advantage from the disease.
Under certain conditions of life, there may also be derived a
tangible external advantage, more or less valuable in reality.
Let me direct your attention to the most frequent occurrences
of this sort. "Women who are brutally treated and mercilessly
exploited by their husbands almost always adopt the evasion of
the neurosis, provided that their predisposition permits this.
This usually follows when the woman is too cowardly or too
virtuous to seek secret solace in the arms of another, or when
she dare not separate from her husband in the face of all oppo-
sition, when she has no prospect of maintaining herself or of
finding a better husband and especially when her sexual emo-
tions still bind her to this brutal man. Her illness becomes a
weapon in her struggle with him, one that she can use for self-
protection and misuse for purposes of vengeance. She probably
dare not complain of her marriage, but she can complain of her
illness. The doctor becomes her assistant. She forces her in-
considerate husband to spare her, to attend to her wishes, to
permit her absence from the house and thus free her from the
oppressions of her married life. Wherever such external or

Ordinary Nervousness 333

accidental gain through illness is considerable and can find no
substitute in fact, you can prophesy that the possibility of in'
fluencing neurosis through therapy is very slight.

You will tell me that what I have said about the advantage
gained from the disease speaks entirely for the hypothesis I
have rejected, namely, that the ego itself wills and creates the
neurosis. Just a moment! It probably does not mean more
than that the ego passively suffers the neurosis to exist, which
it is unable to prevent anyway. It makes the most of the neu-
rosis, if anything can be made of it at all. This is only one side
of the question, the advantageous side. The ego is willing to
endure the advantages of the neurosis, but there are not only
advantages. As a rule it soon appears that the ego has made
a poor deal in accepting the neurosis. It has paid too high a
price for the mitigation of the conflict; and the sensations of
suffering which the symptoms bring with them are perhaps every
bit as bad as the agonies of conflict, usually they cause even
greater discomfort. The ego wants to rid itself of the pain of
the symptoms without relinquishing the gain of illness, and that
is impossible. Thus the ego is discovered as by no means so
active as it had thought itself to be, and this we want to keep
in mind.

If you were to come into contact with neurotics as a physician,
you would soon cease to expect that those who complain most
woefully of their illness are the ones who will oppose its therapy
with the least resistance or who will welcome any help. On
the contrary, you would readily understand that everything
contributing to the advantage derived from the disease will
strengthen the resistance to the suppression and heighten the
difficulty of the therapy. We must also add another and later
advantage to the gain of illness which is born with the symptom.
If a psychic organization, such as this illness, has persisted for
a long time, it finally behaves as an independent unit, it ex-
presses something like self-preservation, attains a kind of
modus vivendi between itself and other parts of psychic life,
even those that are fundamentally hostile to it. And occasions
will probably arise where it can prove again to be both useful
and valuable, by which it will attain a secondary function,
which gives strength to its existence. Instead of an illustration
from pathology take a striking example from everyday life.

334 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

An efficient workman who earns his living is crippled for hi*
occupation by some disaster; his work is over for him. After
a while, however, he receives a small accident insurance, and
learns to exploit his injury by begging. His new existence,
though most undesirable, is based upon the very thing that
robbed him of his former maintenance. If you could cure his
defect, he would be without a means of subsistence, he would
have no livelihood. The question would arise : Is he capable of
resuming his former work? That which corresponds to such
secondary exploitation of illness in neurosis we may add to the
primary benefit derived therefrom and may term it a secondary
advantage of disease.

In general I should like to warn you not to underestimate the
practical significance of the advantage from illness and yet not
to be too much impressed by it theoretically. Aside from the
previously recognized exceptions, I am always reminded of
Oberlander's pictures on "the intelligence of animals" which
appeared in the Fliegende Blatter. An Arab is riding a camel
on a narrow path cut through a steep mountain side. At a turn
of the trail he is suddenly confronted by a lion who makes ready
to spring. He sees no way out, on one side the precipice, on
the other the abyss; retreat and flight — both are impossible;
he gives himself up as lost. Not so the camel. He leaps into
the abyss with his rider — and the lion is left in the lurch. The
help of neurosis is as a rule no kinder to the rider. It may be
due to the fact that the settlement of the conflict through symp-
tom development is nevertheless an automatic process, not able
to meet the demands of life, and for whose sake man renounces
the use of his best and loftiest powers. If it were possible to
choose, it were indeed best to perish in an honorable struggle
with destiny.

I still owe you further explanation as to why, in my presenta-
tion of the theory of neurosis, I did not proceed from ordinary
nervousness as a starting point. You may assume that, had I
done this, the proof of the sexual origin of neurosis would have
been more difficult for me, and so I refrained. There you are
mistaken. In transference neurosis we must work at interpreta-
tions of the symptoms to arrive at this conclusion. In the ordi-
nary forms of the so-called true neuroses, however, the etio-
logical significance of sexual life is a crude fact open to observa-

Ordinary Nervousness 335

tion. I discovered it twenty years ago when I asked myself
one day why we regularly barred out questions concerning
sexual activity in examining nervous patients. At that time I
sacrificed my popularity among my patients to my investiga-
tions, yet after a brief effort I could state that no neurosis, no
true neurosis at least, is present with a normal sexual life. Of
course, this statement passes too lightly over the individual
differences, it is unclear through the vagueness with which it
uses the term "normal," but even to-day it retains its value
for purposes of rough orientation. At that time I reached the
point of drawing comparisons between certain forms of nervous-
ness and sexual abnormalities, and I do not doubt that I could
repeat the same observations now, if similar material were at
my disposal. I frequently noticed that a man who contented
himself with incomplete sexual gratification, with manual anon-
ism, for instance, would suffer from a true neurosis, and that
this neurosis would promptly give way to another form, if an-
other sexual regime no less harmful were substituted. From
the change in the condition of the patient I was able to guess
the change in the mode of his sexual life. At that time I
learned to hold obstinately to my conjectures until I had over-
come the patient's prevarications and had forced him to confirm
my suppositions. To be sure, then he preferred to consult other
physicians who did not inquire so insistently into his sexual life.
At that time it did not escape my notice that the origin of
the disease could not always be traced back to sexual life;
sexual abnormality would cause the illness in one person, while
another would fall ill because he had lost his fortune or had
suffered an exhausting organic disease. We gained insight into
this variation by means of the interrelations between the ego
and the libido, and the more profound our insight became, the
more satisfactory were the results. A person begins to suffer
from neurosis when his ego has lost the capacity of accommo-
dating the libido. The stronger the ego, the easier the solution
of the problem; a weakening of the ego from any cause what-
soever has the same effect as a superlative increase of the claims
of the libido. There are other and more intimate relations
between the ego and the libido which I shall not discuss, as we
are not concerned with them here. To us it is of enlightening
significance that in every case, regardless of the way in which

336 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

the illness was caused, the symptoms of neurosis were opposed
by the libido and thus gave evidence for its abnormal use.

Now, however, I want to draw your attention to the difference
between the symptoms of the true neuroses and the psycho-
neuroses, the first group of which, the transference neurosis, has
occupied us considerably. In both cases the symptoms proceed
from the libido. They are accordingly abnormal uses of it, sub-
stitutes for gratification. But the symptoms of the true neurosis
— such as pressure in the head, sensations of pain, irritability of
an organ, weakening or inhibition of a function — these have no
meaning, no psychic significance. They are manifested not
only in the body, as for instance hysteric symptoms, but are
in themselves physical processes whose creation is devoid of all
the complicated psychic mechanism with which we have become
acquainted. They really embody the character that has so long
been attributed to the psychoneurotic symptom. But how can
they then correspond to uses of the libido, which we have come
to know as a psychological farce? That is quite simple. Let
me recall one of the very first objections that was made to
psychoanalysis. It was stated that psychoanalysis was con-
cerned with a purely psychological theory of neurotic manifesta-
tions; that this was a hopeless outlook since psychological theo-
ries could never explain illness. The objectors chose to forget
that the sexual function is neither purely psychic nor merely
somatic. It influences physical as well as psychic life. In the
symptoms of the psychoneuroses we have recognized the expres-
sion of a disturbance in psychic processes. And so we shall not
be surprised to discover that the true neuroses are the direct
somatic consequences of sexual disturbances.

The medical clinic gives us a valuable suggestion (observed
by many research workers) for the comprehension of the true
neuroses. In all the details of their symptomatology, and as
well in their characteristic power to influence all organic sys-
tems and all functions, the true neuroses reveal a marked simi-
larity to the conditions of those diseases which originate through
the chronic influence of foreign poisons and as well through
their acute diminution ; with conditions prevalent in intoxication
and abstinence. The two groups of conditions are brought still
closer together by the relation of intermediate conditions, which,
following M. Basedowi, we have learned to attribute to the influ-

Ordinary Nervousness 337

ence of toxic substances, but of toxins, however, which are not
introduced into the body from without, but arise in its own
metabolism. These analogies, I think, lead us directly to the
consideration of these neuroses as disturbances in sexual metabo-
lism. It may be that more sexual toxins are produced than the
individual can dispose of, or that inner, even psychic conditions,
stand in the way of the proper elaboration of these substances.
The language of the people has always favored such assumptions
as to the nature of sexual desires. It calls love an "intoxica-
tion"; it will have love-madness aroused through potions, and
thus sees the motive force removed, as it were, to the outer world.
For the rest, the phrase "sexual metabolism" or "chemism of
sexuality" is a chapter-head without content. We know nothing
about it and cannot even decide whether we are to assume two
sexual substances, the male and the female, or, if there is
only one sexual toxin, which to consider the carrier of all the
stimulating power of the libido. The structure of psychoanalysis
that we have erected is really only a superstructure which at
some future time must be placed upon its organic foundation;
but what this is we do not know as yet.

Psychoanalysis is characterized as a science, not by reason of
the subject matter it handles but by the technique it employs.
This can be employed in dealing with the history of civilization,
the science of religion or mythology, as well as with the theory
of neurosis, without altering its character. The revealing of the
unconscious in psychic life is all it aims to accomplish. The
problems of the true neuroses, whose symptoms probably origi-
nate in direct toxic damage, yield no point of attack to psycho-
analysis. Psychoanalysis can do little for their elucidation, and
must leave the task to biological-medical research. Perhaps you
understand now why I did not choose to organize my material
differently. If I had given to you an Introduction to the
Theory of the Neuroses as you wished, it would unquestionably
have been correct to proceed from the simple forms of the true
neuroses to those complex illnesses caused by a disturbance of
the libido. In discussing the true neuroses I would have had to
bring together the facts we have gleaned from various quarters
and present what we think we know of them. Only later, under
the psychoneuroses, would psychoanalysis have been discussed
as the most important technical aid for insight into these con-

338 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ditions. I had, however, intended and announced A General 7n-
troduction to Psychoanalysis, and it seemed to me more import-
ant to give you an idea of psychoanalysis than to present certain
positive facts about neuroses ; and so I could not place the true
neuroses into the foreground, for they prove sterile for the
purposes of psychoanalysis. I believe that I have made the
wiser choice for you, since psychoanalysis deserves the interest
of every educated person because of its profound hypotheses
and far-reaching connections. The theory of neurosis, on the
other hand, is a chapter of medicine like any other.

You are, however, justified in expecting some interest on our
part in the true neuroses. Because of their intimate connection
with psychoneuroses we find this decidedly necessary. I shall
tell you then that we distinguish three pure forms of true
neuroses: neurasthenia, anxiety neurosis and hypochondria.
Even this classification has not remained uncontradicted. The
terms are all widely used, but their connotation is vague and
uncertain. Besides, there are in this world of confusion physi-
cians who object to any distinctions between manifestations, any
emphasis of clinical detail, who do not even recognize the separa-
tion of true neuroses and psychoneuroses. I think they have gone
too far and have not chosen the road which leads to progress. The
types of neuroses we have mentioned occur occasionally in pure
form; more often they are blended with one another or with a
psychoneurotic condition. This need not discourage us to the
extent of abandoning the task of distinction. Think of the differ-
ence between the study of minerals and that of ores in mineral-
ogy. Minerals are described as individuals ; frequently of course
they occur as crystals, separated sharply from their surround-
ings. Ores consist of an aggregate of minerals which have
coalesced not accidentally, but as a result of the conditions of
their origin. We understand too little of the process of develop-
ment of neuroses, to create anything similar to the study of ores.
But we are surely working in the right direction when we isolate
the known clinical factors, comparable to the separate minerals,
from the great mass.

A noteworthy connection between the symptoms of the true
neuroses and the psychoneuroses adds a valuable contribution to
our knowledge of symptom formation in the latter. The symp-
tom in the true neuroses is frequently the nucleus and incipient

Ordinary Nervousness 339

stage of development of the psychoneurotic symptom. Such a
connection is most easily observed between neurasthenia and the
transference neuroses, which are termed conversion hysteria, be-
tween anxiety neurosis and anxiety hysteria, but also between hy-
pochondria and paraphrenia (dementia praecox and paranoia),
forms of neuroses of which we shall speak subsequently. Let us
take as an illustration the hysteric headache or backache.
Analysis shows that through elaboration and displacement this
pain has become the gratification substitute for a whole series of
libidinous phantasies or reminiscences. But once upon a time
this pain was real, a direct sexual toxic symptom, the physical
expression of libidinous excitation. We do not wish to assert,
by any means, that all hysteric symptoms can be traced to such
a nucleus, but it is true that this is frequently the case, and that
all influences upon the body through libidinous excitation,
whether normal or pathological, are especially significant for the
symptom development in hysteria. They play the part of the
grain of sand which the mollusc has enveloped in mother-of-
pearl. In the same way passing signs of sexual excitation, which
accompany the sexual act, are used by psychoneurosis as the
most convenient and appropriate material for symptom forma-
tion.

A similar procedure is of diagnostic and therapeutic interest
especially. Persons who are disposed to be neurotic, without
suffering from a flourishing neurosis, frequently set in motion
the work of symptom development as the result of an abnormal
physical change — often an inflammation or an injury. This
development rapidly makes the symptom given by reality the
representative of the unconscious phantasies that had been lurk-
ing for an opportunity to seize upon a means of expression. In
such a case the physician will try different ways of therapy.
Either he will try to do away with the organic basis without
bothering about its noisy neurotic elaboration, or he will struggle
with the neurosis brought out by the occasion, and ignore its
organic cause. The result will justify now one, now the other
method of procedure; no general laws can be laid down for
such mixed cases.

TWENTY-FIFTH LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

Fear and Anxiety

PROBABLY you will term what I told you about ordinary
nervousness in my last lecture most fragmentary and
unsatisfactory information. I know this, and I think
you were probably most surprised that I did not men-
tion fear, which most nervous people complain of and describe
as their greatest source of suffering. It can attain a terrible
intensity which may result in the wildest enterprises. But I do
not wish to fall short of your expectations in this matter. I
intend, on the contrary, to treat the problem of the fear of
nervous people with great accuracy and to discuss it with you
at some length.

Fear itself needs no introduction ; everyone has at some time
or other known this sensation or, more precisely, this effect.
It seems to me that we never seriously inquired why the nervous
suffered so much more and so much more intensely under this
condition. Perhaps it was thought a matter of course; it is
usual to confuse the words "nervous" and "anxious" as though
they meant the same thing. That is unjustifiable; there are
anxious people who are not nervous, and nervous people who
suffer from many symptoms, but not from the tendency to
anxiety.

However that may be, it is certain that the problem of fear
is the meeting point of many important questions, an enigma
whose complete solution would cast a flood of light upon psychic
life. I do not claim that I can furnish you with this complete
solution, but you will certainly expect psychoanalysis to deal
with this theme in a manner different from that of the schools
of medicine. These schools seem to be interested primarily in
the anatomical cause of the condition of fear. They say the
medulla oblongata is irritated, and the patient learns that he is

340

Fear and Anxiety 341

suffering from neurosis of the nervus vague. The medulla
oblongata is a very serious and beautiful object. I remember
exactly how much time and trouble I devoted to the study of it,
years ago. But today I must say that I know of nothing more
indifferent to me for the psychological comprehension of fear,
than knowledge of the nerve passage through which these sen-
sations must pass.

One can talk about fear for a long time without even touching
upon nervousness. You will understand me without more ado,
when I term this fear real fear in contrast to neurotic fear. Real
fear seems quite rational and comprehensible to us. We may
testify that it is a reaction to the perception of external danger,
viz., harm that is expected and foreseen. It is related to the
flight reflex and may be regarded as an expression of the instinct
of self-preservation. And so the occasions, viz., the objects and
situations which arouse fear, will depend largely on our knowl-
edge of and our feeling of power over the outer world. We deem
it quite a matter of course that the savage fears a cannon or
an eclipse of the sun, while the white man, who can handle the
instrument and prophesy the phenomenon, does not fear these
things. At other times superior knowledge promulgates fear,
because it recognizes the danger earlier. The savage, for in-
stance, will recoil before a footprint in the woods, meaningless
to the uninstructed, which reveals to him the proximity of an
animal of prey ; the experienced sailor will notice a little cloud,
which tells him of a coming hurricane, with terror, while to the
passenger it seems insignificant.

After further consideration, we must say to ourselves that
the verdict on real fear, whether it be rational or purposeful,
must be thoroughly revised. For the only purposeful behavior
in the face of imminent danger would be the cool appraisal of
one 's own strength in comparison with the extent of the threaten-
ing danger, and then decide which would presage a happier
ending : flight, defense, or possibly even attack. Under such a
proceeding fear has absolutely no place ; everything that happens
would be consummated just as well and better without the
development of fear. You know that if fear is too strong, it
proves absolutely useless and paralyzes every action, even flight.
Generally the reaction against danger consists in a mixture of
fear and resistance. The frightened animal is afraid and flees.

342 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

But the purposeful factor in such a case is not fear but flight.

We are therefore tempted to claim that the development of
fear is never purposeful. Perhaps closer examination will give
us greater insight into the fear situation. The first factor is
the expectancy of danger which expresses itself in heightened
sensory attention and in motor tension. This expectancy is un-
doubtedly advantageous; its absence may be responsible for
serious consequences. On the one hand, it gives rise to motor
activity, primarily to flight, and on a higher plane to active
defense ; on the other hand, it gives rise to something which we
consider the condition of fear.1 In so far as the development is
still incipient, and is restricted to a mere signal, the more
undisturbed the conversion of the readiness to be afraid into
action the more purposeful the entire proceeding. The readi-
ness to be afraid seems to be the purposeful aspect; evolution
of fear itself, the element that defeats its own object.

I avoid entering upon a discussion as to whether our language
means the same or distinct things by the words anxiety, fear
or fright. I think that anxiety is used in connection with a
condition regardless of any objective, while fear is essentially
directed toward an object. Fright, on the other hand, seems
really to possess a special meaning, which emphasizes the effects
of a danger which is precipitated without any expectance or
readiness of fear. Thus we might say that anxiety protects man
from fright.

You have probably noticed the ambiguity and vagueness in
the use of the word "anxiety." Generally one means a sub-
jective condition, caused by the perception that an "evolution
of fear" has been consummated. Such a condition may be called
an emotion. What is an emotion in the dynamic sense? Cer-
tainly something very complex. An emotion, in the first place,
includes indefinite motor innervations or discharges; secondly,
definite sensations which moreover are of two kinds, the per-
ception of motor activities that have already taken place, and
the direct sensations of pleasure and pain, which give the effect
of what we call its feeling tone. But I do not think that the true
nature of the emotion has been fathomed by these enumerations.
We have gained deeper insight into some emotions and realize
that the thread which binds together such a complex as we have
described is the repetition of a certain significant experience.

Fear and Anxiety 343

This experience might be an early impression of a very general
sort, which belongs to the antecedent history of the species
rather than to that of the individual. To be more clear: the
emotional condition has a structure similar to that of an hysteri-
cal attack; it is the upshot of a reminiscence. The hysteric
attack, then, is comparable to a newly formed individual emo-
tion, the normal emotion to an hysteria which has become a
universal heritage.

Do not assume that what I have said here about emotions is
derived from normal psychology. On the contrary, these are
conceptions that have grown up with and are at home only in
psychoanalysis. What psychology has to say about emotions — the
James-Lange theory, for instance — is absolutely incomprehensible
for us psychoanalysts, and cannot be discussed. Of course, we
do not consider our knowledge about emotions very certain;
it is a preliminary attempt to become oriented in this obscure
region. To continue : We believe we know the early impression
which the emotion of fear repeats. We think it is birth itself
which combines that complex of painful feelings, of a discharge
of impulses, of physical sensations, which has become the proto-
type for the effect of danger to life, and is ever after repeated
within us as a condition of fear. The tremendous heightening
of irritability through the interruption of the circulation (in-
ternal respiration) was at the time the cause of the experience
of fear ; the first fear was therefore toxic. The name anxiety —
angustial — narrowness, emphasizes the characteristic tightening
of the breath, which was at the time a consequence of an actual
situation and is henceforth repeated almost regularly in the
emotion. We shall also recognize how significant it is that this
first condition of fear appeared during the separation from the
mother. Of course, we are convinced that the tendency to repeti-
tion of the first condition of fear has been so deeply ingrained
in the organism through countless generations, that not a single
individual can escape the emotion of fear ; not even the mythical
Macduff who was "cut out of his mother's womb," and there-
fore did not experience birth itself. We do not know the proto-
type of the condition of fear in the case of other mammals, and
so we do not know the complex of emotions that in them is the
equivalent of our fear.

Perhaps it will interest you to hear how the idea that birth

344 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

is the source and prototype of the emotion of fear, happened to
occur to me. Speculation plays the smallest part in it; I bor-
rowed it from the native train of thought of the people. Many
years ago we were sitting around the dinner table — a numbel
of young physicians — when an assistant in the obstetrical clinic
told a jolly story of what had happened in the last examination
for midwives. A candidate was asked what it implied if during
delivery the foeces of the newborn was present in the discharge
of waters, and she answered promptly "the child is afraid."
She was laughed at and "flunked." But I silently took her
part and began to suspect that the poor woman of the people
had, with sound perception, revealed an important connection.

Proceeding now to neurotic fear, what are its manifestations
and conditions? There is much to be described. In the first
place we find a general condition of anxiety, a condition of free-
floating fear as it were, which is ready to attach itself to any
appropriate idea, to influence judgment, to give rise to expecta-
tions, in fact to seize any opportunity to make itself felt. We
call this condition "expectant fear" or "anxious expectation."
Persons who suffer from this sort of fear always prophesy the
most terrible of all possibilities, interpret every coincidence as
an evil omen, and ascribe a dreadful meaning to all uncertainty.
Many persons who cannot be termed ill show this tendency to
anticipate disaster. We blame them for being over-anxious or
pessimistic. A striking amount of expectant fear is characteris-
tic of a nervous condition which I have named "anxiety
neurosis," and which I group with the true neuroses.

A second form of fear in contrast to the one we have just
described is psychologically more circumscribed and bound up
with certain objects or situations. It is the fear of the manifold
and frequently very peculiar phobias. Stanley Hall, the
distinguished American psychologist, has recently taken the
trouble to present a whole series of these phobias in gorgeous
Greek terminology. They sound like the enumeration of the ten
Egyptian plagues, except that their number exceeds ten, by far.
Just listen to all the things which may become the objects of
contents of a phobia: Darkness, open air, open squares, cats,
spiders, caterpillars, snakes, mice, thunder-storms, sharp points,
blood, enclosed spaces, crowds, solitude, passing over a bridge,
travel on land and sea, etc. A first attempt at orientation in

F.ear and Anxiety 345

this chaos leads readily to a division into three groups. Some
of the fearful objects and situations have something gruesome
for normal people too, a relation to danger, and so, though they
are exaggerated in intensity, they do not seem incomprehensible
to us. Most of us, for instance, experience a feeling of repulsion
in the presence of a snake. One may say that snakephobia is
common to all human beings, and Charles Darwin has described
most impressively how he was unable to control his fear of a
snake pointing for him, though he knew he was separated from
it by a thick pane of glass. The second group consists of cases
which still bear a relation to danger, but this is of a kind which
we are disposed to belittle rather than to overestimate. Most
of the situation-phobia belong here. We know that by taking
a railroad journey we entail greater chance of disaster than by
staying at home. A collision, for instance, may occur, or a ship
sink, when as a rule we must drown; yet we do not think of
these dangers, and free from fear we travel on train and boat.
We cannot deny that if a bridge should collapse at the moment
we are crossing it, we would fall into the river, but that is such
a rare occurrence that we do not take the danger into account.
Solitude too has its dangers and we avoid it under certain con-
ditions ; but it is by no means a matter of being unable to suffer
it for a single moment. The same is true for the crowd, the
enclosed space, the thunder-storm, etc. It is not at all the
content but the intensity of these neurotic phobias that appears
strange to us. The fear of the phobia cannot even be described.
Sometimes we almost receive the impression that the neurotic
is not really afraid of the same things and situations that can
arouse fear in us, and which The calls by the same name.

There remains a third group of phobias which is entirely un-
intelligible to us. When a strong, adult man is afraid to cross
a street or a square of his own home town, when a healthy, well-
developed woman becomes almost senseless with fear because a
cat has brushed the hem of her dress or a mouse has scurried
through the room — how are we to establish the relation to
danger that obviously exists under the phobia ? In these animal
phobias it cannot possibly be a question of the heightening of
common human antipathies. For, as an illustration of the
antithesis, there are numerous persons who cannot pass a cat
without calling and petting it. The mouse of which women are

346 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

so much afraid, is at the same time a first class pet name. Many
a girl who has been gratified to have her lover call her so,
screams when she sees the cunning little creature itself. The
behavior of the man who is afraid to cross the street or the
square can only be explained by saying that he acts like a little
child. A child is really taught to avoid a situation of this sort
as dangerous, and our agoraphobist is actually relieved of his
fear if some one goes with him across the square or street.

The two forms of fear that have been described, free-floating
fear and the fear which is bound up with phobias, are independ-
ent of one another. The one is by no means a higher develop-
ment of the other ; only in exceptional cases, almost by accident,
do they occur simultaneously. The strongest condition of gen-
eral anxiety need not manifest itself in phobias; and persons
whose entire life is hemmed in by agoraphobia can be entirely
free of pessimistic expectant fear. Some phobias, such as the
fear of squares or of trains, are acquired only in later life, while
others, the fear of darkness, storms and animals, exist from the
very beginning. The former signify serious illness, the latter
appear rather as peculiarities, moods. Yet whoever is burdened
with fear of this second kind may be expected to harbor other
and similar phobias. I must add that we group all these phobias
under anxiety hysteria, and therefore regard it as a condition
closely related to the well-known conversion hysteria.

The third form of neurotic fear confronts us with an enigma ;
we loose sight entirely of the connection between fear and
threatening danger. This anxiety occurs in hysteria, for in-
stance, as the accompaniment of hysteric symptoms, or under
certain conditions of excitement, where we would expect an
emotional manifestation, but least of all of fear, or without refer-
ence to any known circumstance, unintelligible to us and to the
patient. Neither far nor near can we discover a danger or a
cause which might have been exaggerated to such significance.
Through these spontaneous attacks we learn that the complex
which we call the condition of anxiety can be resolved into its
components. The whole attack may be represented by a single
intensively developed symptom, such as a trembling, dizziness,
palpitation of the heart, or tightening of breath; the general
undertone by which we usually recognize fear may be utterly
lacking or vague. And yet these conditions, which we describe

Fear and Anxiety 347

as "anxiety equivalents," are comparable to anxiety in all ita
clinical and etiological relations.

Two questions arise. Can we relate neurotic fear, in which
danger plays so small a part or none at all, to real fear, which
is always a reaction to danger? And what can we understand
as the basis of neurotic fear ? For the present we want to hold
to our expectations: "Wherever there is fear, there must be a
cause for it."

Clinical observation yields several suggestions for the compre-
hension of neurotic fear, the significance of which I shall discuss
with you.

1. It. is not difficult to determine that expectant fear or
general anxiety is closely connected with certain processes in
sexual life, let us say with certain types of libido. Utilization,
the simplest and most instructive case of this kind, results when
persons expose themselves to frustrated excitation, viz., if their
sexual excitation does not meet with sufficient relief and is not
brought to a satisfactory conclusion, in men, during the time
of their engagement to marry, for instance, or in women whose
husbands are not sufficiently potent or who, from caution, exe-
cute the sexual act in a shortened or mutilated form. Under
these circumstances libidinous excitement disappears and anxiety
takes its place, both in the form of expectant fear and in attacks
and anxiety equivalents. The cautious interruption of the
sexual act, when practiced as the customary sexual regime, so
frequently causes the anxiety neurosis in men, and especially
in women, that physicians are wise in such cases to examine
primarily this etiology. On innumerable occasions we have
learned that anxiety neurosis vanishes when the sexual misuse
is abandoned.

So far as I know, the connection between sexual restraint
and conditions of anxiety is no longer questioned even by phy-
sicians who have nothing to do with psychoanalysis. But I can
well imagine that they do not desist from reversing the con-
nection and saying that these persons have exhibited a tendency
to anxiety from the outset and therefore practice reserve in
sexual matters. The behavior of women whose sexual conduct is
passive, viz., is determined by the treatment of the husband,
contradicts this supposition. The more temperamental, that is,
the more disposed toward sexual intercourse and capable of

348 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

gratification is the woman, the more will she react to the im-
potence of the man, or to the coitus interruptus, by anxiety
manifestations. In anaesthetic or only slightly libidinous
women, such misuse will not carry such consequences.

Sexual abstinence, recommended so warmly by the physicians
of to-day, has the same significance in the development of con-
ditions of anxiety only when the libido, to which satisfactory
relief is denied, is sufficiently strong and not for the most part
accounted for by sublimation. The decision whether illness is
to result always depends upon the quantitative factors. Even
where character formation and not disease is concerned, we
easily recognize that sexual constraint goes hand in hand with
a certain anxiety, a certain caution, while fearlessness and bold
daring arise from free gratification of sexual desires. However
much these relations are altered by various influences of civiliza-
tion, for the average human being it is true that anxiety and
sexual constraint belong together.

I have by no means mentioned all the observations that speak
for the genetic relation of the libido to fear. The influence on
the development of neurotic fear of certain phases of life, such
as puberty and the period of menopause, when the production
of libido is materially heightened, belongs here too. In some
conditions of excitement we may observe the mixture of anxiety
and libido and the final substitution of anxiety for libido. These
facts give us a twofold impression, first that we are concerned
with an accumulation of libido, which is diverted from its normal
channel, second that we are working with somatic processes. Just
how anxiety originates from the libido we do not know ; we can
only ascertain that the libido is in abeyance, and that we observe
anxiety in its place.

2. We glean a second hint from the analysis of the psycho-
neuroses, especially of hysteria. We have heard that in addition
to the symptoms, fear frequently accompanies this condition;
this, however, is free floating fear, which is manifested either
as an attack or becomes a permanent condition. The patients
cannot tell what they are afraid of and connect their fear,
through an unmistakable secondary elaboration, with phobias
nearest at hand; death, insanity, paralysis. When we analyze
the situation which gave rise to the anxiety or to symptoms
accompanied by it, we can generally tell which normal psycho-

Fear and Anxiety 349

logic process has been omitted and has been replaced by the
phenomenon of fear. Let me express it differently: we re-
construct the unconscious process as though it had not experi-
enced suppression and had continued its way into consciousness
uninterruptedly. Under these conditions as well this process
would have been accompanied by an emotion, and we now learn
with surprise that when suppression has occurred the emotion
accompanying the normal process has been replaced by fear,
regardless of its original quality. In hysteric conditions of fear,
its unconscious correlative may be either an impulse of similar
character, such as fear, shame, embarrassment or positive libidi-
nous excitation, or hostile and aggressive emotion such as fury
or rage. Fear then is the common currency for which all emo-
tional impulses can be exchanged, provided that the idea with
which it has been associated has been subject to suppression.

3. Patients suffering from compulsive acts are remarkably
devoid of fear. They yield us the data for our third point. If
we try to hinder them in the performance of their compulsive
acts, of their washing or their ceremonials, or if they themselves
dare to give up one of their compulsions, they are seized with
terrible fear that again exacts obedience to the compulsion. We
understand that the compulsive act had veiled fear and had
been performed only to avoid it. In compulsion neurosis then,
fear, which would otherwise be present, is replaced by symptom
development. Similar results are yielded by hysteria. Follow-
ing the process of suppression we find the development, either
of anxiety alone or of anxiety and symptom development, or
finally a more complete symptom development and no anxiety.
In an abstract sense, then, it would be correct to say that symp-
toms are formed only to evade development of fear, which
otherwise could not be escaped. According to this conception,
fear is seen to occupy the center of the stage in the problems
of neurosis.

Our observations on anxiety neuroses led to the conclusion
that vrhen the libido was diverted from its normal use and
anxiety thus released, it occurred on the basis of somatic
processes. The analyses of hysteria and compulsion neuroses
furnish the correlative observations that similar diversion with
similar results may also be the consequence of a constraint of
psychic forces. Such then is our knowledge of the origin of

350 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

neurotic fear ; it still sounds rather vague. But as yet I know
no path that would lead us further. The second task we have
get ourselves is still more difficult to accomplish. It is the estab-
lishment of a connection between neurotic fear, which is mis-
used libido, and real fear, which is a reaction to danger. You
may believe that these things are quite distinct and yet we have
no criterion for distinguishing the sensations of real and neurotic
fear.

The desired connection is brought about by presupposing the
antithesis of the ego to libido that is so frequently claimed. "We
know that the development of fear is the ego's reaction to
danger, the signal for preparation for flight, and from this we
are led to believe that in neurotic fear the ego attempts to escape
the claims of its libido, and treats this inner danger as though
it came from without. Accordingly our expectation that where
there is fear there must be something to be afraid of, is fulfilled.
But the analogy admits of further application. Just as the
attempt to flee external danger is relieved by standing one's
ground, and by appropriate steps toward defense, so the develop-
ment of neurotic fear is arrested as fast as the symptom de-
velops, for by means of it the fear is held in check.

Our difficulties in understanding now lie elsewhere. The
fear, which represents flight of the ego before the libido, is
supposed to have sprung from the libido itself. That is obscure
and warns us not to forget that the libido of a person belongs
fundamentally to him and cannot confront him as an external
force. The localized dynamics of fear development are still
unintelligible; we do not know what psychic energies are re-
leased or from what psychic systems they are derived. I cannot
promise to solve this problem, but we still have two trails to
follow which lead us to direct observations and analytic investi-
gation which can aid our speculations. We turn to the origin
of fear in the child, and to the source of neurotic fear which
attaches itself to phobias.

Fear in children is quite common and it is very hard to tell
whether it is neurotic or real fear. Indeed, the value of this
distinction is rendered questionable by the behavior of children.
On the one hand we are not surprised that the child fears all
strange persons, new situations and objects, and we explain this
reaction very easily by his weakness and ignorance. We ascribe

Fear and Anxiety 351

to the child a strong disposition to real fear and would consider
it purposeful if this fear were in fact a heritage. Herein the
child would only repeat the behavior of prehistoric man and of
the primitive man of today who, on account of his ignorance
and helplessness, fears everything that is new, and much that
is familiar, all of which can no longer inspire us with fear. If
the phobias of the child were at least partially such as might be
attributed to that primeval period of human development, this
would tally entirely with our expectations.

On the other hand, we cannot overlook the fact that not all
children are equally afraid, and that those very children who
express particular timidity toward all possible objects and situa-
tions subsequently prove to be nervous. Thus the neurotic dis<
position reveals itself by a decided tendency to real fear ; anxiety
rather than nervousness appears to be primary. We therefore
arrive at the conclusion that the child (and later the adult)
fears the power of his libido because he is anxious in the face
of everything. The derivation of anxiety from the libido is
hence put aside. Any investigation of the conditions of real fear
consistently leads to the conclusion that consciousness of one's
own weakness and helplessness — inferiority, in the terminology
of A. Adler — when it is able to persist from childhood to ma-
turity, is the cause underlying the neuroses.

This sounds so simple and convincing that it has a claim upon
our attention. To be sure, it would result in our shifting the
basis of nervousness. The persistence of the feeling of inferi-
ority, and its prerequisite condition of anxiety and its subsequent
development of symptoms, is so firmly established that it is
rather the exceptional case, when health is the outcome, which
requires an explanation. What can be learned from careful
observation of the fear of children ? The little child is primarily
afraid of strange people ; situations wax important only because
they involve people, and objects become influential much later.
But the child does not fear these strange persons because he
attributes evil intentions to them, because he compares his weak-
ness with their strength or recognizes them as dangerous to
his existence, his safety and freedom from pain. Such a child,
suspicious, afraid of the aggressive impulse which dominates
the world, would prove a sad theoretic construction. The child
is afraid of a stranger because he is adjusted to a dear, beloved

352 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

person, his mother. His disappointment and longing are trans-
formed into fear, his unemployed libido, which cannot yet be
held suspended, is diverted by fear. It cannot be termed a
coincidence that this situation, which is a typical example of
all childish fear, is a repetition of the first condition of fear
during birth, viz., separation from the mother.

The first situation phobias of children are darkness and soli-
tude ; the former often persists throughout life ; common to both
is the absence of the dear nurse, the mother. I once heard a
child, who was afraid of the dark, call into an adjoining room,
"Auntie, talk to me, I am afraid." "But what good will that
do you ? You cannot see me ! " Whereupon the child answered,
"If someone speaks, it is brighter." The yearning felt in dark-
ness is converted into the fear of darkness. Far from saying
that neurotic fear is only a secondary, a special case of real
fear, we observe in little children something that resembles
the behavior of real fear and has in common with neurotic
fear, this characteristic feature : origin from unemployed libido.
The child seems to bring very little real fear into the world.
In all situations which may later become the conditions of
phobias, on elevations, narrow bridges across water, on railroad
and boat trips, the child exhibits no fear. And the more ignorant
he is, the less fear he feels. It would be most desirable to have
a greater heritage of such life-preservative instincts; the task
of supervision, which is to hinder him from exposing himself
to one danger after another, would be lessened. In reality the
child at first overestimates his powers and behaves fearlessly
because he does not recognize dangers. He will run to the
water's edge, mount the window sill, play with fire or with sharp
utensils, in short, he will do everything that would harm him and
alarm his guardians. The awakening of real fear is the result
of education, since we may not permit him to pass through
the instructive experience himself.

If there are children who meet this education to fear half
way, and who discover dangers of wfiich they have not been
warned, the explanation suffices that their constitution contains
a greater measure of libidinous need or that they have been
spoiled early through libidinous gratification. No wonder that
those persons who are nervous in later life are recruited from
the ranks of these children. We know that the creation of

Fear and Anxiety 353

neurosis is made easy by the inability to endure a considerable
amount of pent-up libido for any length of time. You see that
here too we must do justice to the constitutional factor, whose
rights we never wish to question. "We fight shy of it only when
others neglect all other claims for this, and introduce the consti-
tutional factor where it does not belong according to the com-
bined results of observation and analysis, or where it must be
the last consideration.

Let us extract the sum of our observations on the anxiety
of children: Infantile fear has very little to do with real fear,
but is closely related to the neurotic fear of adults. It originates
in unemployed libido and replaces the object of love that is
lacking by an external object or situation.

Now you will be glad to hear that the analysis of phobias can-
not teach much more that is new. The same thing occurs in
them as in the fear of children ; unemployed libido is constantly
being converted into real fear and so a tiny external danger
takes the place of the demands of the libido. This coincidence is
not strange, for infantile phobias are not only the prototypes
but the direct prerequisite and prelude to later phobias, which
are grouped with the anxiety hysterias. Every hysteria phobia
can be traced to childish fear of which it is a continuation, even
if it has another content and must therefore receive a different
name. The difference between the two conditions lies in their
mechanism. In the adult the fact that the libido has momentarily
become useless in the form of longing, is not sufficient to effect
the transformation of fear into libido. He has long since learned
to maintain such libido in a suspended state or to use it dif-
ferently. But when the libido is part of a psychic impulse
which has experienced suppression, similar conditions to those
of the child, who cannot distinguish the conscious from the un-
conscious, are reestablished. The regression to infantile phobia
is the bridge where the transformation of libido into fear is
conveniently effected. We have, as you know, spoken a great
deal about suppression, but we have always followed the fate
of the conception that was to be suppressed, because this was
easier to recognize and to present. "We have always omitted
from our consideration what happened to the emotion that clung
to the suppressed idea; and only now we learn that whatever
quality this emotion might have manifested under normal con-

354 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

ditions, its fate is a transformation into fear. This transforma-
tion of emotion is by far the more important part of the sup-
pression process. It is not so easy to discuss, because we cannot
assert the existence of unconscious emotions in the ^.ame sense
as unconscious ideas. With one difference, an idea remains the
same whether it is conscious or unconscious; we can give an
account of what corresponds to an unconscious idea. But an
emotion is a release and must be judged differently from an idea.
Without a deeper reflection and clarification of our hypotheses
of psychic processes, we cannot tell what corresponds to its
unconscious stage. We cannot undertake this here. But we want
to retain the impression we have gained, that the development
of anxiety is closely connected with the unconscious system.

I said that the transformation into fear, rather a discharge
in the form of fear, is the immediate fate of suppressed libido.
Not the only or final fate, I must add. These neuroses are accom-
panied by processes that strive to restrain the development of
fear, and succeed in various ways. In phobias, for instance, two
phases of the neurotic process can be clearly distinguished. The
first effects the suppression of libido and its transition to fear,
which is joined to an external danger. The second consists
in building up all those precautions and safety devices which are
to prevent contact with this danger which is dealt with as an
external fact. Suppression corresponds to the ego's flight from
the libido, which it regards dangerous. The phobia is comparable
to a fortification against outer danger, which is represented by
the much feared libido. The weakness of the phobias' system
of defense lies in the fact that the fort has been strengthened
from without and has remained vulnerable within. The pro-
jection of peril from the libido into the environment is never
very successful. In other neuroses, therefore, other systems
of defense are used against the possibility of fear development.
That is an interesting aspect of the psychology of neurosis.
Unfortunately its study would lead us to digress too far, and
presupposes a more thorough and special knowledge of the sub-
ject. I shall add only one thing more. I have already spoken
to you of the counter siege by which the ego imprisons the sup-
pression and which it must maintain permanently for the sup-
pression to subsist. The task of this counter siege is to carry

Fear and Anxiety 355

out diverse forms of defense against the fear development which
follows the suppression.

To return to the phobias, I may now say that you realize
how insufficient it would be to explain only their content, to be
interested only in knowing that this or that object or situation
is made the subject of a phobia. The content of the phobia has
about the same importance for it as the manifest dream facade
has for the dream. With some necessary restrictions, we admit
that among the contents of the phobias are some that are es-
pecially qualified to be objects of fear through phylogenetic in-
heritance, as Stanley Hall has emphasized. In harmony with
this is the fact that many of these objects of fear can establish
connections with danger only by symbolic relations.

And so we are convinced of the central position that the prob-
lem of fear assumes in the questions of the neurotic psychology.
We are deeply impressed with how closely the development of
fear is interwoven with the fate of the libido and the uncon-
scious system. There is only one disconnected point, one incon-
sistency in our hypothesis: the indisputable fact that real fear
must be considered an expression of the ego's instiacts of self-
preservation.

TWENTY-SIXTH LECTURE

GENERAL. THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

The Libido Theory and Narcism

REPEATEDLY in the past and more recently we have
dealt with the distinction between the ego instincts and
the sexual instincts. At first, suppression taught us
that the two may be flatly opposed to each other, that
in the struggle the sexual instincts suffer apparent defeat and are
forced to obtain satisfaction by other regressive methods, and so
find the compensation for defeat in their invulnerability. After
that we learned that at the outset both have a different relation to
the educator, Nesessity, so that they do not develop in the same
manner and do not enter into the same relationship with the
principle of reality. We come to realize that the sexual instincts
are much more closely allied to the emotional condition of fear
than the ego instincts. This result appears incomplete only in
one respect, which, however, is most important. For further
evidence we shall mention the significant fact that non-satisfac-
tion of hunger and thirst, the two most elementary instincts
of self-preservation, never result in their reversal into anxiety,
while the transformation of unsatisfied libido into fear is, as we
have heard, one of the best known and most frequently observed
phenomena.

No one can contest our perfect justification in separating
the ego from sexual instincts. It is affirmed by the existence of
sexual desire, which is a very special activity of the individual.
The only question is, what significance shall we give to this
distinction, how decisive is it? The answer will depend upon
the results of our observations ; on how far the sexual instincts,
in their psychological and somatic manifestations, behave dif-
ferently from the others that are opposed to them; on how
important are the consequences which result from these differ-
ences. We have, of course, no motive whatever for insisting upon

356

The Libido Theoiy and Narcism 357

a certain intangible difference in the character of the two
groups of instincts. Both are only designations of the sources
of energy of the individual. The discussion as to whether they
are fundamentally of the same or of a different character, and
if the same, when it was that they separated from one another,
cannot profit by the conceptions, but must deal rather with the
underlying biological facts. At present we know very little about
this, and even if we knew more it would not be relevant to our
analytic task.

Obviously, we should gain slight profit if, following the ex-
ample of Jung, we were to emphasize the original unity of all
instincts, and were to call the energy expressed in all of them
"libido." Since the sexual function cannot be eliminated from
psychic life by any device, we are forced to speak of sexual and
asexual libido. As in the past, we rightly retain the name libido
for the instincts of sexual life.

I believe, therefore, that the question, how far the justifiable
distinction of the instincts of sex and of self-preservation may
be carried, is of little importance for psychoanalysis ; and psycho-
analysis is moreover not competent to deal with it. From a
biological standpoint there are, to be sure, various reasons for
believing that this distinction is significant. Sexuality is the
only function of the living organism which extends beyond the
individual and sees to his kinship with the species. It is un-
deniable that its practice does not always benefit the individual
as do his other performances. For the price of ecstatic pleasures
it involves him in dangers which threaten his life and frequently
cause death. Probably peculiar metabolic processes, different
from all others, are required to maintain a part of the individual
life for its progeny. The individual who places himself in the
foreground and regards his sexuality as a means to his gratifica-
tion is, from a biological point of view, only an episode in a
series of generations, a transient appendage to a germ-plasm
which is virtually endowed with immortality, just as though he
were the temporary partner in a corporation which continues
to persist after his death.

For psychoanalytic explanation of neuroses, however, there
is no need to enter upon these far-reaching implications. By
separate observation of the sexual and the ego instincts, we have
gained the key to the understanding of transference-neuroses

358 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

We were able to trace them back to the fundamental situatiou
where the sexual instinct and the instinct of self-preservatioi .
had come in conflct with one another, or biologically although
not so accurately, expressed where the part played by the ego,
that of independent individuality, was opposed to the other, that
of a link in a series of generations. Only human beings are
capable of such conflict, and therefore, taken all in all, neurosis
is the prerogative of man, and not of animals. The excessive
development of his libido and the elaboration of a varied and
complicated psychic life thus made possible, appear to have
created the conditions prerequisite for conflict. It is clear that
these conditions are also responsible for the great progress that
man has made beyond his kinship with animals. The capacity
for neurosis is really only the reverse side of his talents and
gifts. But these are only speculations, which divert us from our
task.

Until now we worked with the impulse that we can distinguish
the ego and the sexual instincts from one another by their
manifestations. We could do this without difficulty in the
transference neuroses. We called the accumulation of energy
which the ego directed towards the object of its sexual striving
libido and all others, which proceeded from the instincts of self-
preservation, interest. We were able to achieve our first insight
into the workings of psychic forces by observing the accumulation
of the libido, its transformations and its final destiny. The
transference neuroses furnished the best material for this. But
the ego, composed from various organizations, their construction
and functioning, remained hidden and we were led to believe
that only the analysis of other neurotic disturbances would raise
the veil.

Very soon we began to extend these psychoanalytic conceptions
to other conditions. As early as 1908, K. Abraham asserted,
after a discussion with me, that the principal characteristic of
dementia praecox (which may be considered one of the psy-
choses) is that there is no libidinous occupation of objects
(The Psycho-sexual Differences between Hysteria and Demen-
tia Praecox). But then the question arose, what happens to
the libido of the demented, which is diverted from its objects?
Abraham did not hesitate to give the answer, ' ' It is turned back
upon the ego, and this reflected turning back is the source of the

The Libido Theory and Narcism 359

megalomania in dementia praecox." This hallucination of
greatness is exactly comparable to the well-known over-estimation
of the objects habitual to lovers. So, for the first time, we gained
an understanding of psychotic condition by comparing it with
the normal course of love.

These first interpretations of Abraham's have been maintained
In psychoanalysis, and have become the basis of our attitude
towards the psychoses. Slowly we familiarized ourselves with
the idea that the libido, which we find attached to certain objects,
which expresses a striving to attain gratification from these
objects, may also forsake them and put in their place the per-
son's own ego. Gradually these ideas were developed more and
more consistently. The name for this placing of the libido—
narcism — was borrowed from one of the perversions described
by P. Naecke. In it the grown individual lavishes upon his own
body all the affection usually devoted to some foreign sex object.

We reflected that if such a fixation of libido on one's own
body and person instead of on some external object exists, this
cannot be an exceptional or trivial occurrence. It is much more
probable that this narcism is the general and original condition,
out of which the love for an object later develops, without how-
ever necessarily causing narcism to disappear. From the evolu-
tionary history of object-libido we remembered that in the bd
ginning many sex instincts seek auto-erotic gratification, and
that this capacity for auto-eroticism forms the basis for the
retardation of sexuality in its education to conformity with fact.
And so, auto-eroticism was the sexual activity of the narcistic
stage in the placing of the libido.

To be brief: "We represented the relation of the ego-libido
to the object-libido in a way which I can explain by an analogy
from zoology. Think of the simplest forms of life, which con-
sist of a little lump of protoplasmic substance which is only
slightly differentiated. They stretch out protrusions, known as
pseudopia, into which the protoplasm flows. But they can with-
draw these protrusions and assume their original shape. Now
we compare the stretching out of these processes with the radia-
tion of libido to the objects, while the central mass of libido can
remain in the ego, and we assume that under normal conditions
ego-libido can be changed into object-libido, and this can again
be taken up into the ego, without any trouble.

360 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

With the help of this representation we can now explain a
great number of psychic conditions, or to express it more
modestly, describe them, in the language of the libido theory;
conditions that we must accredit to normal life, such as the
psychic attitude during love, during organic sickness, during
eleep. We assumed that the conditions of sleep rest upon with-
drawal from the outer world and concentration upon the wish
to sleep. The nocturnal psychic activity expressed in the dream
we found in the service of a wish to sleep and, moreover, gov-
erned by wholly egoistic motives. Continuing in the sense of
libido theory: sleep is a condition in which all occupations of
objects, the libidinous as well as the egoistic, are given up, and
ere withdrawn into the ego. Does this not throw a new light
upon recovery during sleep, and upon the nature of exhaustion
in general ? The picture of blissful isolation in the intra-uterine
life, which the sleeper conjures up night after night, thus also
completes the picture from the psychic side. In the sleeper the
original condition of libido division is again restored, a con-
dition of complete narcism in which libido and ego-interest
are still united and live indistinguishably in the self-sufficient
ego.

We must observe two things : First, how can the conceptions
of narcism and egoism be distinguished? I believe narcism is
the libidinous complement of egoism. When we speak of egoism
we mean only the benefits to the individual; if we speak of
narcism we also take into account his libidinous satisfaction. As
practical motives the two can be followed up separately to a
considerable degree. One can be absolutely egoistic, and still
have strong libidinous occupation of objects, in so far as the
libidinous gratification by way of the object serves the needs of
the ego. Egoism will then take care that the striving for the
object results in no harm to the ego. One can be egoistic and
at the same time excessively narcistic, i.e., have very slight need
of an object. This need may be for direct sexual satisfaction or
even for those higher desires, derived from need, which we are
in the habit of calling love as opposed to sensuality. In
all of these aspects, egoism is the self-evident, the constant, and
narcism the variable element. The antithesis of egoism, altruism,
is not the same as the conception of libidinous occupation of
objects. Altruism differs from it by the absence of desire for

The Libido Theory and Narcism 361

sexual satisfaction. But in the state of being completely in love,
altruism and libidinous occupation with an object clash. The
sex object as a rule draws upon itself a part of the narcism of
the ego. This is generally called "sexual over-estimation" of the
object. If the altruistic transformation from egoism to the
sex object is added, the sex object becomes all powerful ; it has
virtually sucked up the ego.

I think you will find it a pleasant change if after the dry
phantasy of science I present to you a poetic representation of
the economic contrast between narcism and being in love. I
take it from the Westostliche Divans of Goethe:

SULEIKA :

Conqueror and serf and nation ;

They proclaim it joyously;
Mankind's loftiest elation,

Shines in personality.
Life 's enchantment lures and lingers,

Of yourself is not afar,
All may slip through passive fingers,

If you tarry as you are.

HATEM :

Never could I be thus ravished,

Other thoughts are in my mind,
All the gladness earth has lavished

In Suleika's charms I find.
When I cherish her, then only

Dearer to myself I grow,
If she turned to leave me lonely

I should lose the self I know.
Hatem's happiness were over, —

But his changeling soul would glide
Into any favored lover

Whom she fondles at her side.

The second observation is supplementary to the dream theory.
We cannot explain the origin of the dream unless we assume
that the suppressed unconscious has achieved a certain inde-
pendence of the ego. It does not conform to the wish for sleep
and retains its hold on the energies that have seized it, even when
all the occupations with objects dependent upon the ego have
been released for the benefit of sleep. Not until then can we

362 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

understand how this unconscious can take advantage of the noc-
turnal discontinuance or deposition of the censor, and can seize
control of fragments left over from the day to fashion a forbid-
den dream wish from them. On the other hand, it is to the
already existing connections with these supposed elements that
these fragments owe a part of the resistance directed against
the withdrawal of the libido, and controlled by the wish for
Bleep. We also wish to supplement our conception of dream
formation with this trait of dynamic importance.

Organic diseases, painful irritations, inflammation of the or-
gans create a condition which clearly results in freeing the libido
of its objects. The withdrawn libido again finds itself in the
ego and occupies the diseased part of the part. "We may even
venture to assert that under these conditions the withdrawal
of the libido from its objects is more conspicuous than the with-
drawal of egoistic interest from the outside world. This seems
to open the way to an understanding of hypochondria, where
an organ occupies the ego in a similar way without being dis-
eased, according to our conception. I shall resist the temptation
of continuing along this line, or of discussing other situations
which we can understand or represent through the assumption
that the object libido travels to the ego. For I am eager to meet
two objections, which I know are absorbing your attention. In
the first place, you want to call me to account for my insistence
upon distinguishing in sleep, in sickness and in similar situations
between libido and interest, sexual instincts and ego instincts,
since throughout the observations can be explained by assuming
a single and uniform energy, which, freely mobile, occupies now
the object, now the ego, and enters into the services of one or
the other of these impulses. And, secondly, how can I venture
to treat the freeing of libido from its object as the source of a
pathological condition, since such transformation of object-
libido into ego-libido— or more generally, ego-energy — belongs
to the normal, daily and nightly repeated occurrences of psychic
dynamics ?

The answer is: Your first objection sounds good. The dis-
cussion of the conditions of sleep, of sickness and of being in love
would in themselves probably never have led to a distinction
between ego-libido and object-libido, or between libido and in-
terest. But you do not take into account the investigations from

The Libido Theory and Narcism 363

which we have set out, in the light of which we now regard the
psychic situations under discussion. The necessity of dis-
tinguishing between libido and interest, that is, between sexual
instincts and those of self-preservation, is forced upon us by our
insight into the conflict out of which the transference neuroses
emerge. We can no longer reckon without it. The assumption
that object-libido can change into the ego-libido, in other words,
that we must reckon with an ego-libido, appeared to us the only
possible one wherewith to solve the riddle of the so-called nar-
cistic neuroses — for instance, dementia praecox— or to justify
the similarities and differences in a comparison of hysteria and
compulsion. We now apply to sickness, sleep and love that
which we found undeniably affirmed elsewhere. We may pro-
ceed with such applications as far as they will go. The only
assertion that is not a direct refutation of our analytic experi-
ence is that libido remains libido whether it is directed towards
objects or toward the ego itself, and is never transferred into
egoistic interest, and vice-versa. But this assertion is of equal
weight with the distinction of sex and ego instincts which we
have already critically appraised, and which we will maintain
from methodological motives until it may possibly be dis-
proved.

Your second objection, too, raises a justified question, but it
points in a wrong direction. To be sure the retreat of object-
libido into the ego is not purely pathogenic ; we see that it occurs
each time before going to sleep, only to be released again upon
awaking. The little protoplasmic animal draws in its protru-
sions, only to send them out again on a later occasion. But it is
quite another matter when a specific, very energetic process com-
pels the withdrawal of libido from the object. The libido has
become narcistic and cannot find its way back to the object, and
this hindrance to the mobility of the libido certainly becomes
pathogenic. It appears that an accumulation of narcistic libido
cannot be borne beyond a certain point. We can imagine that
the reason for occupation with the object is that the ego found
it necessary to send out its libido in order not to become diseased
because it was pent up. If it were our plan to go further into
the subject of dementia praecox, I would show you that this
process which frees the libido from the objects and bars the
way back to them, is closely related to the process of suDDres-

364 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

sion, and must be considered as its counterpart. But above ail
you would recognize familiar ground, for the conditions of these
processes are practically identical, as far as we can now see,
with those of suppression. The conflict appears to be the same,
and to take place between the same forces. The reason for a
result as different as, for instance, the result in hysteria, can be
found only in a difference of dispositions. The vulnerable point
in the libido development of these patients lies in another phase ;
the controlling fixation, which, as you will remember, permits
the breach resulting in the formation of symptoms, is in another
place probably in the stage of primitive narcism, to which de-
mentia praecox returns in its final stage. It is noteworthy that
for all the narcistic neuroses, we must assume fixation points
of the libido which reach back into far earlier phases of develop-
ment than in cases of hysteria or compulsion neuroses. But you
have heard that the conceptions obtained in our study of trans-
ference neuroses are sufficient to orient us in the narcistic
neuroses, which present far greater practical difficulties. The
similarities are considerable; it is fundamentally the same field
of observation. But you can easily imagine how hopeless the
explanations of these conditions, which belong to psychiatry,
appear to him who is not equipped for this task with an analytic
knowledge of transference neuroses.

The picture given by the symptoms of dementia praecox,
which, moreover, is highly variable, is not exclusively determined
by the symptoms. These result from forcing the libido away
from the objects and accumulating it in the ego in the form
of narcistic libido. A large space is occupied by other phe-
nomena, which result from the impulses of the libido to regain
the objects, and so show an attempt toward restitution and
healing. These symptoms are in fact the more conspicuous, the
more clamorous ; they show an unquestionable similarity to those
of hysteria, or less often to those of compulsion neurosis, and
yet they are different in every respect. It appears that in de-
mentia praecox the libido in its endeavor to return to the
objects, i.e., to the images of the objects, really captures some-
thing, but only their shadows — I mean, the veibal images belong-
ing to them. This is not the place to discuss this matter, but
I believe that these reversed impulses of the libido have per-

The Libido Theory and Narcism 365

mitted us an insight into what really determines the difference
between a conscious and an unconscious representation.

I have now brought you into the field where we may expect
the further progress of analytic work. Since we can now employ
the conception of ego-libido, the narcistic neuroses have become
accessible to us. We are confronted with the problem of finding
a dynamic explanation of these conditions and at the same time
of enlarging our knowledge of psychic life by an understanding
of the ego. The ego psychology, which we strive to understand,
must not be founded upon introspective data, but rather, as in
the libido, upon analysis of the disturbances and decompositions
of the ego. When this greater task is accomplished we shall
probably disparage our previous knowledge of the fate of the
libido which we gained from our study of the transference
neuroses. But there is still much to be said in this matter.
Narcistic neuroses can scarcely be approached by the same
technique which served us in the transference neuroses. Soon
you will hear why. After forging ahead a little in the study of
narcistic neuroses we always seem to come to a wall which im-
pedes progress. You know that in the transference neuroses we
also encountered such barriers of resistance, but we were able
to break them down piece by piece. In narcistic neuroses the
resistance is insuperable; at best we are permitted to cast a
curious glance over the wall to spy out what is taking place on
the other side. Our technical methods must be replaced by
others ; we do not yet know whether or not we shall be able to
find such a substitute. To be sure, even these patients furnish
us with ample material. They do say many things, though not
in answer to our questions, and for the time being we are forced
to interpret these utterances through the understanding we have
gained from the symptoms of transference neuroses. The coinr
cidence is sufficiently great to assure us a good beginning. How
far this technique will go, remains to be seen.

There are additional difficulties that impede our progress.
The narcistic conditions and the psychoses related to them can
only be solved by observers who have schooled themselves in
analytic study of transference neuroses. But our psychiatrists
do not study psychoanalysis and we psychoanalysts see too
few psychiatric cases. A race of psychiatrists that has gone
through the school of psychoanalysis as a preparatory science

366 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

must first grow up. The beginnings of this are now being made
in America, where many leading psychiatrists explain the teach-
ings of psychoanalysis to their students, and where many owners
of sanatoriums and directors of institutes for the insane take
pains to observe their patients in the light of these teachings.
But even here we have occasionally been successful in casting
a glance over the narcistic wall and I shall tell you a few things
that we think we have discovered.

The disease of paranoia, chronic systematic insanity, is given
a very uncertain position by the attempts at classification of
present-day psychiatry. There is no doubt of its close relation-
ship to dementia praecox. I once was so bold as to propose that
paranoia and dementia praecox could be classed together under
the common name of paraphrenia. The types of paranoia are
described according to their content as : megalomania, the mania
of persecution, eroto mania, mania of jealousy, etc. From
psychiatry we do not expect attempts at explanation. As an
example of such an attempt, to be sure an antiquated and not
entirely valid example, I might mention the attempt to develop
one symptom directly out of another by means of an intellectual
rationalization, as : the patient who primarily believes he is being
persecuted draws the conclusion from this persecution that he
must be an extraordinarily important personality and thus
develops megalomania. In our analytical conception megalo-
mania is the immediate outcome of exaggeration of the ego, which
results from the drawing-in of libidinous occupation with objects,
a secondary narcism as a recurrence of the originally early
infantile form. In cases of the mania of persecution we have
noticed a few things that lead us to follow a definite track. In
the first place, we observed that in the great majority of cases
the persecutor was of the same sex as the persecuted. This could
still be explained in a harmless way, but in a few carefully
studied cases it was clearly shown that the person of the same
sex, who was most loved in normal times, became the persecutor
after the malady set in. A further development is made possible
by the fact that one loved person is replaced by another, accord-
ing to familiar affinities, e.g., the father by the teacher or the
superior. We concluded from such ever-increasing experiences,
that paranoia persecutoria is the form in which the individual
guards himself against a homosexual tendency that has become

The Libido Theory and Narcism 367

too powerful. The change from affection to hate, which notori-
ously may take the form of serious threats against the life of the
loved and hated person, expresses the transformation of libidin-
ous impulse into fear, which is a regularly recurring result of
the process of suppression. As an illustration I shall cite the
last case in which I made observations on this subject. A young
physician had to be sent away from his home town because he
had threatened the life of the son of a university professor, who
up to that time had been his best friend. He ascribed truly
devilish intentions to his erstwhile friend and credited him with
power of a demon. He was to blame for all the misfortunes
that had in recent years befallen the family of the patient, for
all his personal and social ill-luck. But this was not enough.
The wicked friend, and his father the professor, had been the
cause of the war and had called the Russians into the land. He
had forfeited his life a thousand times and our patient was con-
vinced that with the death of the culprit all misfortune would
come to an end. And yet his old affection for his friend was
so great that it had paralyzed his hand when he had had the
opportunity of shooting down the enemy at close quarters. In
my short consultations with the patient, I discovered that the
friendship between the two dated back to early school-life. Once
at least the bonds of friendship had been over-stepped ; a night
spent together had been the occasion for complete sexual inter-
course. Our patient never felt attracted to women, as would
have been natural to his age or his charming personality. At
one time he was engaged to a beautiful and distinguished young
girl, but she broke off the engagement because she found so little
affection in her fiance. Years later his malady broke out just
at that moment when for the first time he had succeeded in giving
complete gratification to a woman. When this woman embraced
him, full of gratitude and devotion, he suddenly felt a strange
pain which cut around his skull like a sharp incision. His later
interpretation of this sensation was that an incision such as
is used to expose a part of the brain had been performed upon
him, and since his friend had become a pathological anatomist,
he gradually came to the conclusion that he alone could have
sent him this last woman as a temptation. From that time on his
eyes were also opened to the other persecutions in which he was
to be the victim of the intrigues of his former friend.

368 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

But how about those cases where the persecutor is not of the
same sex as the persecuted, where our explanation of a guard
against homosexual libido is apparently contradicted? A short
time ago I had occasion to investigate such a case and was able
to glean corroboration from this apparent contradiction. A
young girl thought she was followed by a man, with whom she
had twice had intimate relations. She had, as a matter of fact,
first laid these maniacal imputations at the door of a woman,
whom we may consider as having played the part of a mother-
substitute in her psychic life. Only after the second meeting
did she progress to the point of diverting this maniacal idea
from the woman and of transferring it to the man. The condi-
tion that the persecutor must be of the same sex was also origin-
ally maintained in this instance. In her claim before the lawyer
and the physician, this patient did not mention this first stage
of her mania, and this caused the appearance of a contradiction
to our theory of paranoia.

Homosexual choice of object is originally more natural to
narcism than the heterosexual. If it is a matter of thwarting
a strong and undesirable homosexual impulse, the way back
to narcism is made especially easy. Until now I have had very
little opportunity of speaking to you about the fundamental
conditions of love-life, so far as we know them, and now I cannot
make up for lost time. I only want to point out that the choice
of an object, that progress in the development of the libido
which comes after the narcistic stage, can proceed according
to two different types— either according to the narcistic type,
which puts a very similar personality in the place of the personal
ego, or according to the dependent type, which chooses those
persons who have become valuable by satisfying needs of life
other than as objects of the libido. We also accredit a strong
fixation of the libido to the narcistic type of object-choice when
there is a disposition toward manifest homosexuality.

You will recall that in our first meeting of this semester I
told you about the case of a woman who suffered from the mania
of jealousy. Since we are so near the end you certainly will
be glad to hear the psychoanalytic explanation of a maniacal
idea. But I have less to say about it than you expect. The
maniacal idea as well as the compulsion idea cannot be assailed
by logical arguments or actual experience. This is explained by

The Libido Theory and Narcism 369

their relation to the unconscious, which is represented by the
maniacal idea or the compulsion idea, and held down by which-
ever is effective. The difference between the two is based upon
respective localization and dynamic relations of the two con-
ditions.

As in paranoia, so also in melancholia, of which, moreover,
very different clinical forms are described. We have discovered
a point of vantage which will yield us an insight into the inner
structure of the condition. We realize that the self -accusations
with which these melancholic patients torture themselves in the
most pitiless way, really apply to another person, namely, the
sex object which they have lost, or which through some fault
has lost value for them. From this we may conclude that the
melancholic has withdrawn his libido from the object. Through
a process which we designate as "narcistic identification" the
object is built up within the ego itself, is, so to say, projected
upon the ego. Here I can give you only a descriptive repre-
sentation, as yet without reference to the topical and dynamic
relations. The personal ego is now treated in the same manner
as the abandoned object, and suffers all the aggression and ex-
pressions of revenge which were planned for the object. Even
the suicidal tendencies of melancholia are more comprehensible
when we consider that this bitterness of the patient falls alike
on the ego itself and on the object of its love and hate. In melan-
cholia as well as in other narcistic conditions a feature of
emotional life is strikingly shown which, since the time of
Bleuler, we have been accustomed to designate as ambivalence.
By this we mean that hostile and affectionate feelings are di-
rected against one and the same person. I have, in the course
of these discussions, unfortunately not been in a position to tell
you more about this emotional ambivalence.

We have, in addition to narcistic identification, an hysterical
identification as well, which moreover has been known to us for a
much longer time. I wish it were possible to determine clearly
the difference between the two. Of the periodic and cyclic forms
of melancholia I can tell you something that you will certainly
be glad to hear, for it is possible, under favorable circum-
stances— I have twice had the experience — to prevent these
emotional conditions (or their antitheses) by means of analytic
treatment in the free intervals between the attacks. We learn

370 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

that in melancholia as well as in mania, it is a matter of finding
a special way for solving the conflict, the prerequisites for which
entirely coincide with those of other neuroses. You can imagine
how much there still is for psychoanalysis to learn in this field.

I told you, too, that we hoped to gain a knowledge of the struc-
ture of the ego, and of the separate factors out of which it is
built by means of the analysis of narcistic conditions. In one
place we have already made a beginning. From the analysis
of the maniacal delusion of being watched we concluded that in
the ego there is really an agent which continually watches,
criticizes and compares the other part of the ego and thus
opposes it. We believe that the patient imparts to us a truth
that is not yet sufficiently appreciated, when he complains that
all his actions are spied upon and watched, all his thoughts
recorded and criticized. He errs only in transferring this dis-
tressing force to something alien, outside of himself. He feels
the dominance of a factor in his ego, which compares his actual
ego and all of its activities to an ideal ego that he has created
in the course of his development. We also believe that the
creation of this ideal ego took place with the purpose of again
establishing that self-satisfaction which is bound up with the
original infantile narcism, but which since then has experienced
so many disturbances and disparagements. In this self -observing
agent we recognize the ego-censor, the conscience ; it is the same
factor which at night exercises dream-censorship, and which
creates the suppressions against inadmissible wish-impulses.
Under analysis in the maniacal delusion of being watched it
reveals its origin in the influence of parents, tutors and social
environment and in the identification of the ego with certain
of these model individuals.

These are some of the conclusions which the application of
psychoanalysis to narcistic conditions has yielded us. They are
certainly all too few, and they often lack that accuracy which
can only be acquired in a new field with the attainment of abso-
lute familiarity. We owe them all to the exploitation of the con-
ception of ego-libido or narcistic libido, by the aid of which we
have extended to narcistic neuroses those observations which were
confirmed in the transference neuroses. But now you will ask,
is it possible for us to succeed in subordinating all the dis-
turbances of narcistic conditions and the psychoses to the libido

The Libido Theory and Narcism 371

theory in such a way that in every case we recognize the libidin-
ous factor of psychic life as the cause of the malady, and never
make an abnormality in the functioning of the instincts of self-
preservation answerable ? Ladies and gentlemen, this conclusion
does not seem urgent to me, and above all not ripe for decision.
We can best leave it calmly to the progress of the science. I
should not be surprised to find that the power to exert a patho-
genic influence is really an exclusive prerogative of the libidinous
impulses, and that the libido theory will celebrate its triumphs
along the whole line from the simplest true neurosis to the most
difficult psychotic derangement of the individual. For we know
it to be a characteristic of the libido that it is continually strug-
gling against subordinating itself to the realities of the world.
But I consider it most probable that the ego instincts are
indirectly swept along by the pathogenic excitations of the libido
and forced into a functional disturbance. Moreover, I cannot
see any defeat for our trend of investigation when we are con-
fronted with the admission that in difficult psychoses the ego
impulses themselves are fundamentally led astray; the future
will teach us — or at least it will teach you. Let me return for
one moment more to fear, in order to eliminate one last am-
biguity that we have left. We have said that the relation be-
tween fear and the libido, which, in other respects seems clearly
denned, does not fit in with the assumption that in the face of
danger real fear should become the expression of the instinct of
self-preservation. This, however, can hardly be doubted. But
suppose the emotion of fear is not contested by the egoistic ego
impulse, but rather by the ego-libido ? The condition of fear is
in all cases purposeless and its lack of purpose is obvious when
it reaches a higher level. It then disturbs the action, be it flight
or defense, which alone is purposeful, and which serves the ends
of self-preservation. If we accredit the emotional component
of actual fear to the ego-libido, and the accompanying activity
to the egoistic instinct to self-preservation, we have overcome
every theoretical difficulty. Furthermore, you do not really be-
lieve that we flee "because we experience fear ? On the contrary,
we first are afraid and then take to flight from the same motive
that is awakened by the realization of danger. Men who have
survived the endangering of their lives tell us that they were
not at all afraid, they only acted. They turned the weapon
against the wild animal, and that was in fact the most purposeful
thinfif to do.

TWENTY-SEVENTH LECTURE

GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES

Transference

WE ARE nearing the close of our discussions, and
you probably cherish certain expectations, which
shall not be disappointed. You think, I suppose,
that I have not guided you through thick and thin
of psychoanalytic subject matter to dismiss you without a word
about therapy, which furnishes the only possibility of carrying
on psychoanalysis. I cannot possibly omit this subject, for the
observation of some of its aspects will teach you a new fact,
without which the understanding of the diseases we have exam-
ined would be most incomplete.

I know that you do not expect any guidance in the technique
of practising analysis for therapeutic purposes. You wish to
know only along what general lines psychoanalytic therapy works
and approximately what it accomplishes. And you have an
undeniable right to know this. I shall not actually tell you,
however, but shall insist that you guess it yourselves.

Only think! You know everything essential, from the con-
ditions which precipitate the illness to all the factors at work
within. Where is there room for therapeutic influence ? In the
first place, there is hereditary disposition; we do not speak of
it often because it is strongly emphasized from another quarter,
and we have nothing new to say about it. But do not think that
we underestimate it. Just because we are therapeutists, we feel
its power distinctly. At any rate, we cannot change it; it is a
given fact which erects a barrier to our efforts. In the second
place, there is the influence of the early experiences of childhood,
which are in the habit of becoming sharply emphasized under
analysis; they belong to the past and we cannot undo them.
And then everything that we include in the term "actual for-
bearance " — misfortunes of life out of which privations of love

372

Transference 373

arise, poverty, family discord, unfortunate choice in marriage,
unfavorable social conditions and the severity of moral claims.
These would certainly offer a foothold for very effectual therapy.
But it would have to be the kind of therapy which, according
to the Viennese folk-tale, Emperor Joseph practiced: the bene-
ficial interference of a potentate, before whose will men bow
and difficulties vanish. But who are we, to include such charity
in the methods of our therapy? Poor as we are, powerless in
society, forced to earn our living by practicing medicine, we are
not even in a position to treat free of charge those patients who
are unable to pay, as physicians who employ other methods of
treatment can do. Our therapy is too long drawn-out, too ex-
tended for that. But perhaps you are still holding to one of the
factors already mentioned, and think that you have found a
factor through which our influence may be effective. If the
restrictions of morality which are imposed by society have a
share in the privation forced upon the patient, treatment might
give him the courage, or possibly even the prescription itself,
to cross these barriers, might tell him how gratification and
health can be secured in the renunciation of that ideal which
society has held up to us but often disregards. One grows
healthy then, by giving one's sexuality full reign. Such analytic
treatment, however, would be darkened by a shadow ; it does not
serve our recognized morality. The gain to the individual is a
loss to society.

But, ladies and gentlemen, who has misinformed you to this
degree? It is inconceivable that the advice to give one's sexu-
ality full reign can play a part in analytic therapy, if only
from the circumstance we have ourselves described, that there
is going on within the patient a bitter conflict between libidinous
impulse and sexual suppression, between sensual and ascetic
tendencies. This conflict is not abolished by giving one of these
tendencies the victory over its opponent. We see that in the
case of the nervous, asceticism has retained the upper hand.
The consequence of this is that the suppressed sexual desire gains
breathing space by the development of symptoms. If, on the
other hand, we were to give the victory to sexuality, symptoms
would have to replace the sexual suppression, which has been
pushed aside. Neither of the two decisions can end the inner
conflict, one part always remains unsatisfied. There are only a

374 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

few cases wherein the conflict is so labile, that a factor such as
the intervention of the physician could be decisive, and these
cases really require no analytic treatment. Persons who can be
so much influenced by a physician would have found some solu-
tion without him. You know that when an abstinent young man
decides upon illegitimate sex-intercourse, or when an unsatisfied
woman seeks compensation from another man, they have gener-
ally not waited for the permission of a physician, far less of
an analyst, to do this.

In studying the situation, one essential point is generally over-
looked, that the pathogenic conflict of the neurotic must not be
confused with normal struggles between psychic impulses of
which all have their root in the same psychological soil. The
neurotic struggle is a strife of forces, one of which has attained
the level of the fore-conscious and the conscious, while the other
has been held back in the unconscious stage. That is why the
conflict can have no outcome; the struggling parties approach
each other as little as in the well-known instance of the polar-
bear and the whale. A real decision can be reached only if both
meet on the same ground. To accomplish this is, I believe, the
sole task of therapy.

Moreover, I assure you that you are misinformed if you as-
sume that advice and guidance in the affairs of life is an integral
part of the analytic influence. On the contrary, we reject this
role of the mentor as far as possible. Above all, we wish to
attain independent decisions on the part of the patient. With
this intention in mind, we require him to postpone all vital
resolutions such as choice of a career, marriage or divorce, until
the close of the treatment. You must confess that this is not
what you had imagined. It is only in the case of certain very
young or entirely helpless persons that we cannot insist upon
the desired limitation. Here we must combine the function of
physician and educator ; we are well aware of the responsibility
and behave with the necessary precaution.

Judging from the zeal with which I defend myself against
the accusation that analytic treatment urges the nervous person
to give his sexuality full reign, you must not gather that we
influence him for the benefit of conventional morality. We are
just as far removed from that. We are no reformers, it is true,
only observers, but we cannot help observing with critical eyes,

Transference 375

and we have found it impossible to take the part of conventional
sex morality, or to estimate highly the way in which society has
tried to regulate the problems of sexual life in practice. We can
prove to society mathematically that its code of ethics has
exacted more sacrifices than is its worth, and that its procedure
rests neither on veracity nor wisdom. We cannot spare our
patients the task of listening to this criticism. We accustom
them to weigh sexual matters, as well as others, without pre-
judice; and when, after the completion of the cure, they have
become independent and choose some intermediate course be-
tween unrestrained sexuality and asceticism, our conscience is
not burdened by the consequences. We tell ourselves: whoever
has been succssfully educated in being true to himself is perma-
nently protected against the danger of immorality, even if his
moral standard diverges from that of society. Let us, moreover,
be careful not to overestimate the significance of the problem
of abstinence with respect to its influence on neuroses. Only the
minority of pathogenic situations of forbearance, with a subse-
quent condition of pent-up libido, can be resolved without more
ado by such sexual intercourse as can be procured with little
trouble.

And so you cannot explain the therapeutic influence of psy-
choanalysis by saying that it simply recommends giving full
sway to sexuality. You must seek another solution. I think that
while I was refuting this supposition of yours, one of my re-
marks put you on the right track. Our usefulness consists in
replacing the unconscious by the conscious, in translating the
unconscious into the conscious. You are right; that is exactly
it. By projecting the unconscious into the conscious, we do away
with suppressions, we remove conditions of symptom formation
and transform a pathogenic into a normal conflict which can
be decided in some way or other. This is the only psychic change
we produce in our patients ; its extent is the extent of our help-
fulness. Wherever no suppression and no analogous psychic
process can be undone, there is no place for our therapy.

We can express the aim of our efforts by various formulae of
rendering the unconscious conscious, removing suppressions, fill-
ing out amnestic gaps — it all amounts to the same thing. But
perhaps this admission does not satisfy you. You imagined that
when a nervous person became cured something very different

376 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

happened, that after having been subjected to the laborious
process of psychoanalysis, he was transformed into a different
human being. And now I tell you that the entire result is only
that he has a little less of the unconscious, a little more of the
conscious within him. Well, you probably underestimate the
significance of such an inner change. The person cured of
neurosis has really become another human being. Funda-
mentally, of course, he has remained the same. That is to say,
he has only become what he might have been under the most
favorable conditions. But that is saying a great deal. When
you learn all that has to be done, the effort required to effect
apparently so slight a change in psychic life, the significance
of such a difference in the psychic realm will be credible to you.

I shall digress for a moment to ask whether you know what
is meant by a causal therapy? This name is given to the pro-
cedure which does not take the manifestations of disease for its
point of departure, but seeks to remove the causes of disease.
Is our psychoanalytical therapy causal or not? The answer is
not simple, but perhaps it will give us the opportunity of con-
vincing ourselves that this point of departure is comparatively
fruitless. In so far as analytical therapy does not concern
itself immediately with the removal of symptoms, it may be
termed causal. Yet in another respect, you might say this
would hardly follow. For we have followed the causal chain
back far beyond the suppressions to the instinctive tendencies
and their relative intensity as given by the constitution of the
patient, and finally the nature of the digression in the abnormal
process of its development. Assume for a moment that it were
possible to influence these functions chemically, to increase or
to decrease the quantity of the libido that happens to be present,
to strengthen one impulse at the expense of another. This
would be causal therapy in its true sense and our analysis
would have furnished the indispensable preparatory work of
reconnaissance. You know that there is as yet no possibility
of so influencing the processes of the libido. Our psychic therapy
interposes elsewhere, not exactly at those sources of the phe-
nomena which have been disclosed to us, but sufficiently far be-
yond the symptoms, at an opening in the structure of the
disease which has become accessible to us by means of peculiar
conditions.

Transference 377

What must we do in order to replace the unconscious by the
conscious in our patient? At one time we thought this was
quite simple, that all we had to do was to reconstruct the un-
conscious and then tell the patient about it. But we already
know this was a shortsighted error. Our knowledge of the un-
conscious has not the same value as his ; if we communicate our
knowledge to him it will not stand in place of the unconscious
within him, but will exist beside it, and only a very small change
will have been effected. "We must rather think of the un-
conscious as localized, and must seek it in memory at the point
where it came into existence by means of a suppression. This
suppression must be removed before the substitution of the con-
scious for the unconscious can be successfully effected. How
can such a suppression be removed? Here our task enters a
second phase. First to find the suppression, then to remove the
resistance by which this suppression is maintained.

How can we do away with resistance? In the same way — by
reconstructing it and confronting the patient with it. For re-
sistance arises from suppression, from the very suppression
which we are trying to break up, or from an earlier one. It has
been established by the counter-attack that was instigated to
suppress the offensive impulse. And so now we do the very
thing we intended at the outset: interpret, reconstruct, com-
municate— but now we do it in the right place. The counter-
seizure of the idea or resistance is not part of the unconscious
but of the ego, which is our fellow-worker. This holds true even
if resistance is not conscious. We know that the difficulty arises
from the ambiguity of the word ' ' unconscious, ' ' which may con,
note either a phenomenon or a system. That seems very diffi-
cult, but it is only a repetition, isn't it? We were prepared
for it a long time ago. We expect resistance to be relinquished,
the counter-siege to collapse, when our interpretation has
enabled the ego to recognize it. With what impulses are we able
to work in such a case? In the first place, the patient's desire
to become well, which has led him to accommodate himself to co-
operate with us in the task of the cure ; in the second place, the
help of his intelligence, which is supported by the interpretation
we offer him. There is no doubt that after we have made clear
to him what he may expect, the patient's intelligence can identify
resistances, and find their translation into the suppressions more

378 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

readily. If I say to you, ' ' Look up into the sky, you can see a
balloon there," you will find it more readily than if I had just
asked you to look up to see whether you could discover anything.
And unless the student who for the first time works with a
microscope is told by his teacher what he may look for, he will
not see anything, even if it is present and quite visible.

And now for the fact! In a large number of forms of
nervous illness, in hysteria, conditions of anxiety and compulsion
neuroses, one hypothesis is correct. By finding the suppression,
revealing resistance, interpreting the thing suppressed, we really
succeed in solving the problem, in overcoming resistance, in
removing suppression, in transforming the unconscious into the
conscious. While doing this we gain the clearest impression of
the violent struggle that takes place in the patient's soul for
the subjugation of resistance — a normal psychological struggle,
in one psychic sphere between the motives that wish to maintain
the counter-siege and those which are willing to give it up.
The former are the old motives that at one time effected sup-
pression ; among the latter are those that have recently entered
the conflict, to decide it, we trust, in the sense we favor. We
have succeeded in reviving the old conflict of the suppression,
in reopening the case that had already been decided. The new
material we contribute consists in the first place of the warning,
that the former solution of the conflict had led to illness, and
the promise that another will pave the way to health ; secondly,
the powerful change of all conditions since the time of that first
rejection. At that time the ego had been weak, infantile and
may have had reason to denounce the claims of the libido as
if they were dangerous. Today it is strong, experienced and is
supported by the assistance of the physician. And so we may
expect to guide the revived conflict to a better issue than a sup-
pression, and in hysteria, fear and compulsion neuroses, as I
have said before, success justifies our claims.

There are other forms of illness, however, in which our thera-
peutic procedure never is successful, even though the causal
conditions are similar. Though this may be characterized
topically in a different way, in them there was also an original
conflict between the ego and libido, which led to supression.
Here, too, it is possible to discover the occasions when suppres-
sions occurred in the life of the patient. We employ the same

Transference 379

procedure, are prepared to furnish the same promises, give the
game kind of help. We again present to the patient the con-
nections we expect him to discover, and we have in our favor
the same interval in time between the treatment and these sup-
pressions favoring a solution of the conflict ; yet in spite of these
conditions, we are not able to overcome the resistance, or to re-
move the suppression. These patients, suffering from paranoia,
melancholia, and dementia praecox, remain untouched on the
whole, and proof against psychoanalytic therapy. What is the
reason for this? It is not lack of intelligence; we require, of
course, a certain amount of intellectual ability in our patients;
but those suffering from paranoia, for instance, who effect such
subtle combinations of facts, certainly are not in want of it. Nor
can we say that other motive forces are lacking. Patients suf-
fering from melancholia, in contrast to those afflicted with
paranoia, are profoundly conscious of being ill, of suffering
greatly, but they are not more accessible. Here we are con-
fronted with a fact we do not understand, which bids us doubt
if we have really understood all the conditions of success in
other neuroses.

In the further consideration of our dealings with hysterical
and compulsion neurotics we soon meet with a second fact, for
which we were not at all prepared. After a while we notice that
these patients behave toward us in a very peculiar way. We
thought that we had accounted for all the motive forces that
could come into play, that we had rationalized the relation be-
tween the patient and ourselves until it could be as readily sur»
veyed as an example in arithmetic, and yet some force begins to
make itself felt that we had not considered in our calculations.
This unexpected something is highly variable. I shall first de-
scribe those of its manifestations which occur frequently and
are easy to understand.

We see our patient, who should be occupying himself only
with finding a way out of his painful conflicts, become especially
interested in the person of the physician. Everything connected
with this person is more important to him than his own affairs
and diverts him from his illness. Dealings with him are very
pleasant for the time being. He is especially cordial, seeks to
show his gratitude wherever he can, and manifests refinements
and merits of character that we hardly had expected to find.

380 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

The physician forms a very favorable opinon of the patient and
praises the happy chance that permitted him to render assistance
to so admirable a personality. If the physician has the oppor-
tunity of speaking to the relatives of the patient he hears with
pleasure that this esteem is returned. At home the patient
never tires of praising the physician, of prizing advantages which
he constantly discovers. ' ' He adores you, he trusts you blindly,
everything you say is a revelation to him," the relatives say.
Here and there one of the chorus observes more keenly and
remarks, "It is a positive bore to hear him talk, he speaks only
of you; you are his only subject of conversation."

Let us hope that the physician is modest enough to ascribe the
patient's estimation of his personality to the encouragement
that has been offered him and to the widening of his intellectual
horizon through the astounding and liberating revelations which
the cure entails. Under these conditions analysis progresses
splendidly. The patient understands every suggestion, he con-
centrates on the problems that the treatment requires him to
solve, reminiscences and ideas flood his mind. The physician is
surprised by the certainty and depth of these interpretations and
notices with satisfaction how willingly the sick man receives the
new psychological facts which are so hotly contested by the
healthy persons in the world outside. An objective improvement
in the condition of the patient, universally admitted, goes hand
in hand with this harmonious relation of the physician to the
patient under analysis.

But we cannot always expect to have fair weather. There
comes a day when the storm breaks. Difficulties turn up in the
treatment. The patient asserts that he can think of nothing
more. "We are under the impression that he is no longer inter-
ested in the work, that he lightly passes over the injunction that,
heedless of any critical impulse, he must say everything that
comes to his mind. He behaves as though he were not under
treatment, as though he had closed no agreement with the physi-
cian; he is clearly obsessed by something he does not wish to
divulge. This is a situation which endangers the success of the
treatment. We are distinctly confronted with a tremendous
resistance. What can have happened ?

Provided we are able once more to clarify the situation, we
recognize the cause of the disturbance to have been intens-

Transference 381

affctionate emotions, which, the patient has transferred to the
physician. This is certainly not justified either by the behavior
of the physician or by the relations the treatment has created.
The way in which this affection is manifested and the goals it
strives for will depend on the personal affiliations of the two
parties involved. When we have here a young girl and a man
who is still young we receive the impression of normal love.
We find it quite natural that a girl should fall in love with a
man with whom she is alone a great deal, with whom she dis-
cusses intimate matters, who appears to her in the advantageous
light of a beneficent adviser. In this we probably overlook the
fact that in a neurotic girl we should rather presuppose a
derangement in her capacity to love. The more the personal
relations of physician and patient diverge from this hypo-
thetical case, the more are we puzzled to find the same emotional
relation over and over again. We can understand that a young
woman, unhappy in her marriage, develops a serious passion
for her physician, who is still free; that she is ready to seek
divorce in order to belong to him, or even does not hesitate to
enter into a secret love affair, in case the conventional obstacles
loom too large. Similar things are known to occur outside of
psychoanalysis. Under these circumstances, however, we are
surprised to hear women and girls make remarks that reveal
a certain attitude toward the problems of the cure. They
always knew that love alone could cure them, and from the very
beginning of their treatment they anticipated that this relation-
ship would yield them what life had denied. This hope alone
has spurred them on to exert themselves during the treatments,
to overcome all the difficulties in communicating their dis-
closures. We add on our own account — "and to understand so
easily everything that is generally most difficult to believe."
But we are amazed by such a confession ; it upsets our calcula-
tions completely. Can it be that we have omitted the most
important factor from our hypothesis?

And really, the more experience we gain, the less we can
deny this correction, which shames our knowledge. The first
few times we could still believe that the analytic cure had met
with an accidental interruption, not inherent to its purpose.
But when this affectionate relation between physician and patient
occurs regularly in every new case, under the most unfavorable

382 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

conditions and even under grotesque circumstances; when it
occurs in the case of the elderly woman, and is directed toward
the grey-beard, or to one in whom, according to our judgment,
no seductive attractions exist, we must abandon the idea of an
accidental interruption, and realize that we are dealing with a
phenomenon which is closely interwoven with the nature of the
illness.

The new fact which we recognize unwillingly is termed trans-
ference. "We mean a transference of emotions to the person of
the physician, because we do not believe that the situation of
the cure justifies the genesis of such feelings. We rather surmise
that this readiness toward emotion originated elsewhere, that
it was prepared within the patient, and that the opportunity
given by analytic treatment caused it to be transferred to the
person of the physician. Transference may occur as a stormy
demand for love or in a more moderate form; in place of the
desire to be his mistress, the young girl may wish to be adopted
as the favored daughter of the old man, the libidinous desire may
be toned down to a proposal of inseparable but ideal and
platonic friendship. Some women understand how to sublimate
the transference, how to modify it until it attains a kind of
fitness for existence ; others manifest it in its original, crude and
generally impossible form. But fundamentally it is always the
same and can never conceal that its origin is derived from the
same source.

Before we ask ourselves how we can accommodate this new
fact, we must first complete its description. What happens in
the case of male patients? Here we might hope to escape the
troublesome infusion of sex difference and sex attraction. But
the answer is pretty much the same as with women patients.
The same relation to the physician, the same over-estimation of
his qualities, the same abandon of interest toward his affairs,
the same jealousy toward all those who are close to him. The
sublimated forms of transference are more frequent in men, the
direct sexual demand is rarer to the extent to which manifest
homosexuality retreats before the methods by which these in-
stinct components may be utilized. In his male patients more
often than in his women patients, the physician observes a mani-
festation of transference which at first sight seems to contradict

Transference 383

everything previously described: a hostile or negative trans-
ference.

In the first place, let us realize that the transference occurs
in the patient at the very outset of the treatment and is, for a
time, the strongest impetus to work. We do not feel it and
need not heed it as long as it acts to the advantage of the
analysis we are working out together. When it turns into re-
sistance, however, we must pay attention to it. Then we dis-
cover that two contrasting conditions have changed their relation
to the treatment. In the first place there is the development of
an affectionate inclination, clearly revealing the signs of its
origin in sexual desire which becomes so strong as to awaken
an inner resistance against it. Secondly, there are the hostile
instead of the tender impulses. The hostile feelings generally
appear later than the affectionate impulses or succeed them.
When they occur simultaneously they exemplify the ambivalence
of emotions which exists in most of the intimate relations between
all persons. The hostile feelings connote an emotional attach-
ment just as do the affectionate impulses, just as defiance signi-
fies dependence as well as does obedience, although the activities
they call out are opposed. We cannot doubt but that the hostile
feelings toward the physician deserve the name of transfer-
ence, since the situation which the treatment creates certainly
could not give sufficient cause for their origin. This necessary
interpretation of negative transference assures us that we have
not mistaken the positive or affectionate emotions that we have
similarly named.

The origin of this transference, the difficulties it causes us, the
means of overcoming it, the use we finally extract from it — these
matters must be dealt with in the technical instruction of psycho-
analysis, and can only be touched upon here. It is out of the
question to yield to those demands of the patient which take root
from the transference, while it would be unkind to reject them
brusquely or even indignantly. We overcome transference by
proving to the patient that his feelings do not originate in the
present situation, and are not intended for the person of the
physician, but merely repeat what happened to him at some
former time. In this way we force him to transform his repeti-
tion into a recollection. And so transference, which whether it
be hostile or affectionate, seems in every case to be the greatest

384 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

menace of the cure, really becomes its most effectual tool, which
aids in opening the locked compartments of the psychic life.
But I should like to tell you something which will help you to
overcome the astonishment you must feel at this unexpected
phenomenon. We must not forget that this illness of the patient
Which we have undertaken to analyze is not consummated or, as
it were, congealed; rather it is something that continues its
development like a living being. The beginning of the treatment
does not end this development. When the cure, however, first
has taken possession of the patient, the productivity of the illness
in this new phase is concentrated entirely on one aspect: the
relation of the patient to the physician. And so transference
may be compared to the cambrium layer between the wood and
the bark of a tree, from which the formation of new tissues and
the growth of the trunk proceed at the same time. When the
transference has once attained this significance the work upon
the recollections of the patient recedes into the background. At
that point it is correct to say that we are no longer concerned
with the patient's former illness, but with a newly created, trans-
formed neurosis, in place of the former. We followed up this
new edition of an old condition from the very beginning, we
saw it originate and grow; hence we understand it especially
well, because we ourselves are the center of it, its object. All
the symptoms of the patient have lost their original meaning
and have adapted themselves to a new meaning, which is deter-
mined by its relation to transference. Or, only such symptoms
as are capable of this transformation have persisted. The con-
trol of this new, artificial neurosis coincides with the removal
of the illness for which treatment was sought in the first place,
namely, with the solution of our therapeutic problem. The
human being who, by means of his relations to the physician, has
freed himself from the influences of suppressed impulses, be-
comes and stays free in his individual life, when the influence of
the physician is subsequently removed.

Transference has attained extraordinary significance, has be-
come the centre of the cure, in the conditions of hysteria, anxiety
and compulsion neuroses. Their conditions therefore are prop-
erly included under the term transference neuroses. Whoever
in his analytic experience has come into contact with the exist-
ence of transference can no longer doubt the character of those

Transference 385

suppressed impulses that express themselves in the symptoms of
these neuroses and requires no stronger proof of their libidinous
character. We may say that our conviction that the meaning
of the symptoms is substituted libidinous gratification was finally
confirmed by this explanation of transference.

Now we have every reason to correct our former dynamic
conception of the healing process, and to bring it into harmony
with our new discernment. If the patient is to fight the normal
conflict that our analysis has revealed against the suppressions,
he requires a tremendous impetus to influence the desirable de-
cision which will lead him back to health. Otherwise he might
decide for a repetition of the former issue and allow those factors
which have been admitted to consciousness to slip back again
into suppression. The deciding vote in this conflict is not given
by his intellectual penetration — which is neither strong nor free
enough for such an achievement — but only by his relation to
the physician. Inasmuch as his transference carries a positive
sign, it invests the physician with authority and is converted into
faith for his communications and conceptions. Without trans-
ference of this sort, or without a negative transfer, he would not
even listen to the physician and to his arguments. Faith repeats
the history of its own origin; it is a derivative of love and at
first requires no arguments. When they are offered by a be-
loved person, arguments may later be admitted and subjected
to critical reflection. Arguments without such support avail
nothing, and never mean anything in life to most persons. Man 's
intellect is accessible only in so far as he is capable of libidinous
occupation with an object, and accordingly we have good ground
to recognize and to fear the limit of the patient's capacity for
being influenced by even the best analytical technique, namely,
the extent of his narcism.

The capacity for directing libidinous occupation with objects
towards persons as well must also be accorded to all normal
persons. The inclination to transference on the part of the
neurotic we have mentioned, is only an extraordinary heighten-
ing of this common characteristic. It would be strange indeed if
a human trait so wide-spread and significant had never been
noticed and turned to account. But that has been done. Bern-
heim, with unerring perspicacity, based his theory of hypnotic
manifestations on the statement that all persons are open to

386 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

suggestion in some way or other. Suggestibility in his sense is
nothing more than an inclination to transference, bounded so
narrowly that there is no room for any negative transfer. But
Bernheim could never define suggestion or its origin. For him
it was a fundamental fact, and he could never tell us anything
regarding its origin. He did not recognize the dependence of
suggestibility upon sexuality and the activity of the libido. We,
on the other hand, must realize that we have excluded hypnosis
from our technique of neurosis only to rediscover suggestion in
the shape of transference.

But now I shall pause and let you put in a word. I see that
an objection is looming so large within you that if it were not
voiced you would be unable to listen to me. "So at last you
confess that like the hypnotists, you work with the aid of sug-
gestion. That is what we have been thinking for a long time.
But why choose the detour over reminiscences of the past, reveal-
ing of the unconscious, interpretation and retranslation of dis-
tortions, the tremendous expenditure of time and money, if the
only efficacious thing is suggestion ? Why do you not use sugges-
tion directly against symptoms, as the others do, the honest
hypnotists? And if, furthermore, you offer the excuse that by
going your way you have made numerous psychological dis-
coveries which are not revealed by direct suggestion, who shall
vouch for their accuracy? Are not they, too, a result of sug-
gestion, that is to say, of unintentional suggestion? Can you
not, in this realm also, thrust upon the patient whatever you
wish and whatever you think is so?"

Your objections are uncommonly interesting, and must be
answered. But I cannot do it now for lack of time. Till the
next time, then. You shall see, I shall be accountable to you.
Today I shall only end what I have begun. I promised to ex-
plain, with the aid of the factor of transference, why our thera-
peutic efforts have not met with success in narcistic neuroses.

This I can do in a few words and you will see how simply
the riddle can be solved, how well everything harmonizes. Ob-
servation shows that persons suffering from narcistic neuroses
have no capacity for transference, or only insufficient remains
of it. They reject the physician not with hostility, but with
indifference. That is why he cannot influence them. His words
leave them cold, make no impression, and so the mechanism of

Transference 387

the healing process, which we are able to set in motion else-
where, the renewal of the pathogenic conflict and the overcoming
of the resistance to the suppression, cannot be reproduced in
them. They remain as they are. Frequently they are known
to attempt a cure on their own account, and pathological results
have ensued. We are powerless before them.

On the basis of our clinical impressions of these patients, we
asserted that in their case libidinous occupation with objects
must have been abandoned, and object-libido must have been
transformed into ego-libido. On the strength of this characteris-
tic we had separated it from the first group of neurotics (hys-
teria, anxiety and compulsion neuroses). Their behavior under
attempts at therapy confirms this supposition. They show no
neurosis. They, therefore, are inaccessible to our efforts and we
cannot cure them.

TWENTY-EIGHTH LECTURE

GENERAL. THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

Analytical Therapy

YOU know our subject for today. You asked me why
we do not make use of direct suggestion in psycho-
analytic therapy, when we admit that our influence
depends substantially upon transference, i.e., sugges-
tion, for you have come to doubt whether or not we can answer
for the objectivity of our psychological discoveries in the face
of such a predominance of suggestion. I promised to give you
a comprehensive answer.

Direct suggestion is suggestion directed against the expression
of the symptoms, a struggle between your authority and the
motives of the disease. You pay no attention during this process
to the motives, but only demand of the patient that he suppress
their expression in symptoms. So it makes no difference in
principle whether you hypnotize the patient or not. Bernheim,
with his usual perspicacity, asserted that suggestion is the essen-
tial phenomenon underlying hypnotism, that hypnotism itself
is already a result of suggestion, is a suggested condition.
Bernheim was especially fond of practising suggestion upon a
person in the waking state, and could achieve the same results
as with suggestion under hypnosis.

What shall I deal with first, the evidence of experience or
theoretic considerations ?

Let us begin with our experiences. I was a pupil of Bern-
heim's, whom I sought out in Nancy in 1889, and whose book
on suggestion I translated into German. For years I practised
hypnotic treatment, at first by means of prohibitory suggestions
alone, and later by this method in combination with investigation
of the patient after the manner of Breuer. So I can speak from
experience about the results of hypnotic or suggestive therapy.
If we judge Bernheim's method according to the old doctor's

388

Analytical Therapy 389

password that an ideal therapy must be rapid, reliable and not
unpleasant for the patient, we find it fulfills at least two of these
requirements. It can be carried out much more rapidly, in-
describably more rapidly than the analytic method, and it brings
the patient neither trouble nor discomfort. In the long run
it becomes monotonous for the physician, since each case is
exactly the same; continually forbidding the existence of the
most diverse symptoms under the same ceremonial, without being
able to grasp anything of their meaning or their significance.
It is second-rate work, not scientific activity, and reminiscent of
magic, conjuring and hocus-pocus ; yet in the face of the interest
of the patient this cannot be considered. The third requisite,
however, was lacking. The procedure was in no way reliable.
It might succeed in one case, and fail with the next ; sometimes
much was accomplished, at other times little, one knew not why.
"Worse than this capriciousness of the technique was the lack of
permanency of the results. After a short time, when the patient
was again heard from, the old malady had reappeared, or it
had been replaced by a new malady. We could start in again
to hypnotize. At the same time we had been warned by those
who were experienced that by frequent repetitions of hypnotism
we would deprive the patient of his self-reliance and accustom
him to this therapy as though it were a narcotic. Granted that
we did occasionally succeed as well as one could wish ; with slight
trouble we achieved complete and permanent results. But the
conditions for such a favorable outcome remained unknown. I
have had it happen that an aggravated condition which I had
succeeded in clearing up completely by a short hypnotic treat-
ment returned unchanged when the patient became angry and
arbitrarily developed ill feeling against me. After a reconcilia-
tion I was able to remove the malady anew and with even greater
thoroughness, yet when she became hostile to me a second time
it returned again. Another time a patient whom I had re-
peatedly helped through nervous conditions by hypnosis, during
the treatment of an especially stubborn attack, suddenly threw
her arms around my neck. This made it necessary to consider
the question, whether one wanted to or not, of the nature and
source of the suggestive authority.

So much for experience. It shows us that in renouncing direct
suggestion we have given up nothing that is not replaceable.

390 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Now let us add a few further considerations. The practice of
hypnotic therapy demands only a slight amount of work of the
patient as well as of the physician. This therapy fits in per-
fectly with the estimation of neuroses to which the majority of
physicians subscribe. The physician says to the neurotic,
" There is nothing the matter with you; you are only nervous,
and so I can blow away all your difficulties with a few words in
a few minutes." But it is contrary to our dynamic conceptions
that we should be able to move a great weight by an inconsider-
able force, by attacking it directly and without the aid of appro-
priate preparations. So far as conditions are comparable, experi-
ence shows us that this performance does not succeed with the
neurotic. But I know this argument is not unassailable; there
are also "redeeming features."

In the light of the knowledge we have gained from psycho-
analysis we can describe the difference between hypnotic and
psychoanalytic suggestion as follows: Hypnotic therapy seeks
to hide something in psychic life, and to gloss it over ; analytic
therapy seeks to lay it bare and to remove it. The first method
works cosmetically, the other surgically. The first uses sugges-
tion in order to prevent the appearance of the symptoms, it
strengthens suppression, but leaves unchanged all other processes
that have led to symptom development. Analytic therapy attacks
the illness closer to its sources, namely in the conflicts out of
which the symptoms have emerged, it makes use of suggestion
to change the solution of these conflicts. Hypnotic therapy
leaves the patient inactive and unchanged, and therefore without
resistance to every new occasion for disease. Analytic treatment
places upon the physician, as well as upon the patient, a diffi-
cult responsibility; the inner resistance of the patient must be
abolished. The psychic life of the patient is permanently
changed by overcoming these resistances, it is lifted upon a
higher plane of development and remains protected against new
possibilities of disease. The work of overcoming resistance is
the fundamental task of the analytic cure. The patient, how-
ever, must take it on himself to accomplish this, while the physi-
cian, with the aid of suggestion, makes it possible for him to do
80. The suggestion works in the nature of an education. We are
therefore justified in saying that analytic treatment is a sort of
after-education.

Analytical Therapy 391

I hope I have made it clear to you wherein our technique of
using suggestion differs therapeutically from the only use pos-
sible in hypnotic therapy. With your knowledge of the relation
between suggestion and transference you will readily understand
the capriciousness of hypnotic therapy which attracted our
attention, and you will see why, on the other hand, analytic
suggestion can be relied upon to its limits. In hypnosis we
depend on the condition of the patient's capacity for transfer-
ence, yet we are unable to exert any influence on this capacity.
The transference of the subject may be negative, or, as is most
frequent, ambivalent; the patient may have protected himself
against suggestion by very special adjustments, yet we are un-
able to learn anything concerning them. In psychoanalysis we
work with the transference itself, we do away with the forces
opposing it, prepare the instrument with which we are to work.
So it becomes possible to derive entirely new uses from the power
of suggestion; we are able to control it, the patient does not
work himself into any state of mind he pleases, but in so far
as we are able to influence him at all, we can guide the suggestion.

Now you will say, regardless of whether we call the driving
force of our analysis transference or suggestion, there is still
the danger that through our influence on the patient the objec-
tive certainty of our discoveries becomes doubtful. That which
becomes a benefit to therapy works harm to the investigation.
This objection is most often raised against psychoanalysis, and
it must be admitted that even if it does not hit the mark, it
cannot be waved aside as stupid. But if it were justified, psycho-
analysis would be nothing more than an extraordinarily well
disguised and especially workable kind of treatment by sugges-
tion, and we may lay little weight upon all its assertions con-
cerning the influences of life, psychic dynamics, and the uncon-
scious. This is in fact the opinion held by our opponents; we
are supposed especially to have " balked into" the patients
everything that supports the importance of sexual experiences,
and often the experiences themselves, after the combinations
themselves have grown up in our degenerate imaginations. We
can refute these attacks most easily by calling on the evidence
of experience rather than by resorting to theory. Anyone who
has himself performed a psychoanalysis has been able to convince
himself innumerable times that it is impossible thus to suggest

392 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

anything to the patient. There is no difficulty, of course, in
making the patient a disciple of any one theory, and thus causing
him to share the possible error of the physician. With respect
to this he behaves just like any other person, like a student, but
he has influenced only his intelligence, not his disease. The
solving of his conflicts and the overcoming of his resistances
succeeds only if we have aroused in him representations of such
expectations as can agree with reality. What was inapplicable
in the assumptions of the physician falls away during the course
of the analysis ; it must be withdrawn and replaced by something
more nearly correct. By employing a careful technique we seek
to prevent the occurrence of temporary results arising out of
suggestion, yet there is no harm if such temporary results
occur, for we are never satisfied with early successes. We do
not consider the analysis finished until all the obscurities of the
case are cleared up, all amnestic gaps filled out and the occasions
which originally called out the suppressions discovered. We see
in results that are achieved too quickly a hindrance rather than
a furtherance of analytic work and repeatedly we undo these
results again by purposely breaking up the transference upon
which they rest. Fundamentally it is this feature which dis-
tinguishes analytical treatment from the purely suggestive tech-
nique and frees analytic results from the suspicion of having
been suggested. Under every other suggestive treatment the
transference itself is most carefully upheld and the influence left
unquestioned; in analytic treatment, however, the transference
becomes the subject of treatment and is subject to criticism in
whatever form it may appear. At the end of an analytic cure
the transference itself must be abolished; therefore the effect
of the treatment, whether positive or negative, must be founded
not upon suggestion but upon the overcoming of inner re-
sistances, upon the inner change achieved in the patient, which
the aid of suggestion has made possible.

Presumably the creation of the separate suggestions is counter-
acted, in the course of the cure, by our being continually forced
to attack resistances which have the ability to change themselves
into negative (hostile) transferences. Furthermore, let me call
your attention to the fact that a large number of results of analy-
sis, otherwise perhaps subject to the suspicion that they are
products of suggestion, can be confirmed from other unquestion-

Analytical Therapy 393

able sources. As authoritative witnesses in this case we refer
to the testimony of dements and paranoiacs, who are, naturally
far removed from any suspicion of suggestive influence. What-
ever these patients can tell us about symbolic translations and
phantasies which have forced their way into their consciousness
agrees faithfully with the results of our investigations upon the
unconscious of transference-neurotics, and this gives added
weight to the objective correctness of our interpretations which
are so often doubted. I believe you will not go wrong if you give
your confidence to analysis with reference to these factors.

We now want to complete our statement concerning the
mechanism of healing, by including it within the formulae of
the libido theory. The neurotic is incapable both of enjoyment
and work; first, because his libido is not directed toward any
real object, and second because he must use up a great deal
of his former energy to keep his libido suppressed and to arm
himself against its attacks. He would become well if there could
be an end to the conflict between his ego and his libido, and if
his ego could again have the libido at its disposal. The task of
iherapy, therefore, consists of freeing the libido from its present
bonds, which have estranged it from the ego, and furthermore
to bring it once more into the service of the ego. Where is the
libido of the neurotics? It is easy to find; it is bound to the
symptoms which at that time furnish it with the only available
substitute satisfaction. We have to become master of the symp-
toms, and abolish them, which is of course exactly what the
patient asks us to do. To abolish the symptoms it becomes neces-
sary to go back to their origin, to renew the conflict out of
which they emerged, but this time with the help of motive forces
that were originally not available, to guide it toward a new
solution. This revision of the process of suppression can be
accomplished only in part by following the traces in memory of
the occurrences which led to the suppression. The decisive part
of the cure is accomplished by means of the relationship to the
physician, the transference, by means of which new editions
of the old conflict are created. Under this situation the patient
would like to behave as he had behaved originally, but by sum-
moning all his available psychic power we compel him to reach
a different decision. Transference, then, becomes the battlefield
on which all the contending forces are to meet.

394 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

The full strength of the libido, as well as the entire resistance
against it, is concentrated in this relationship to the physician;
so it is inevitable that the symptoms of the libido should be laid
bare. In place of his original disturbance the patient manifests
the artificially constructed disturbance of transference ; in place
of heterogeneous unreal objects for the libido you now have only
the person of the physician, a single object, which, however, is
also fantastic. The new struggle over this object is, however,
raised to the highest psychic level with the aid of the physician's
suggestions, and proceeds as a normal psychic conflict. By
avoiding a new suppression the estrangement between the ego
and the libido comes to an end, the psychic unity of the person-
ality is restored. When the libido again becomes detached from
the temporary object of the physician it cannot return to its
former objects, but is now at the disposal of the ego. The forces
we have overcome in the task of therapy are on the one hand
the aversion of the ego for certain directions of the libido, which
had expressed itself as a tendency to suppression, and on the
other hand the tenacity of the libido, which is loathe to leave an
object which it has once occupied.

Accordingly the work of therapy falls into two phases:
first, all the libido is forced from the symptoms into the trans-
ference, and concentrated there ; secondly, the struggle over this
new object is carried on and the libido set free. The decisive
change for the better in this renewed conflict is the throwing
out of the suppression, so that the libido cannot this time again
escape the ego by fleeing into the unconscious. This is accom-
plished by the change in the ego under the influence of the
physician's suggestion. In the course of the work of interpreta-
tion, which translates unconscious into conscious, the ego grows
at the expense of the unconscious; it learns forgiveness toward
the libido, and becomes inclined to permit some sort of satisfac-
tion for it. The ego's timidity in the face of the demands of the
libido is now lessened by the prospect of occupying some of the
libido through sublimation. The more the processes of the treat-
ment correspond to this theoretic description the greater will
be the success of psychoanalytic therapy. It is limited by the
lack of mobility of the libido, which can stand in the way of
releasing its objects, and by the obstinate narcism which will
not permit the object-transference to effect more than just so

Analytical Therapy 395

much. Perhaps we shall obtain further light on the dynamics
of the healing process by the remark that we are able to gather
up the entire libido which has become withdrawn from the con-
trol of the ego by drawing a part of it to ourselves in the process
of transference.

It is to be remembered that we cannot reach a direct con-
clusion as to the disposition of the libido during the disease from
the distributions of the libido which are effected during and
because of the treatment. Assuming that we have succeeded
in curing the case by means of the creation and destruction of a
strong father-transference to the physician, it would be wrong
to conclude that the patient had previously suffered from a
similar and unconscious attachment of his libido to his father.
The father-transference is merely the battlefield upon which we
were able to overcome the libido; the patient's libido had been
concentrated here from its other positions. The battlefield need
not necessarily have coincided with the most important fortresses
of the enemy. Defense of the hostile capital need not take place
before its very gates. Not until we have again destroyed the
transfrence can we begin to reconstruct the distribution of the
libido that existed during the illness.

From the standpoint of the libido theory we might say a last
word in regard to the dream. The dreams of neurotics, as well as
their errors and haphazard thoughts, help us in finding the
meaning of the symptoms and in discovering the disposition of
the libido. In the form of the wish fulfillment they show us
what wish impulses have been suppressed, and to what objects
the libido, withdrawn from the ego, has been attached. That
is why interpretation of dreams plays a large role in psycho-
analytic treatment, and is in many cases, for a long time, the
most important means with which we work. We already know
that the condition of sleep itself carries with it a certain abate-
ment of suppressions. Because of this lessening of the pressure
upon it, it becomes possible for the suppressed impulse to create
in the dream a much clearer expression than the symptom can
furnish during the day. So dream-study is the easiest approach
to a knowledge of the libidinous suppressed unconscious which
has been withdrawn from the ego.

Dreams of neurotics differ in no essential point from the
dreams of normal persons; you might even say they cannot be

396 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

distinguished. It would be unreasonable to explain the dreams
of the nervous in any way which could not be applied to the
dreams of the normal. So we must say the difference between
neurosis and health applies only during the day, and does not
continue in dream life. "We find it necessary to attribute to the
healthy numerous assumptions which have grown out of the
connections between the dreams and the symptoms of the
neurotic. We are not in a position to deny that even a healthy
man possesses those factors in his psychic life which alone make
possible the development of the dream and of the symptom as
well. We must conclude, therefore, that the healthy have also
made use of suppressions and are put to a certain amount of
trouble to keep those impulses under control; the system of
their unconscious, too, conceals impulses which are suppressed,
yet are still possessed of energy, and a part of their libido is also
withdrawn from the control of their ego. So the healthy man
is virtually a neurotic, but dreams are apparently the only
symptoms which he can manifest. Yet if we subject our waking
hours to a more penetrating analysis we discover, of course, that
they refute this appearance and that this seemingly healthy
life is shot through with a number of trivial, practically unim-
portant symptom formations.

The difference between nervous health and neurosis is entirely
a practical one which is determined by the available capacity for
enjoyment and accomplishment retained by the individual. It
varies presumably with the relative proportion of the energy
totals which have remained free and those which have been
bound by suppressions, and is quantitative rather than quali-
tative. I do not have to remind you that this conception is the
theoretical basis for the certainty that neuroses can be cured,
despite their foundation in constitutional disposition.

This is accordingly what we may make out of the identity
between the dreams of the healthy and those of the neurotic
for the definition of health. As regards the dream itself, we must
note further that we cannot separate it from its relation to
neurotic symptoms. We must recognize that it is not completely
defined as a translation of thoughts into an archaic form of
expression, that is, we must assume it discloses a disposition
of libido and of object-occupations which have actually taken
place.

Analytical Therapy 397

We have about come to the end. Perhaps you are disappointed
that I have dealt only with theory in this chapter on psycho-
analytic therapy, and have said nothing concerning the condi-
tions under which the cure is undertaken, or of the successes
which it achieves. But I shall omit both. I shall omit the first
because I had intended no practical training in the practice of
psychoanalysis, and I shall neglect the second for numerous
reasons. At the beginning of our talks I emphasized the fact
that under favorable circumstances we attain results which can
be favorably compared with the happiest achievements in the
field of internal therapy, and, I may add, these results could not
have been otherwise achieved. If I were to say more I might be
suspected of wishing to drown the voices of disparagement,
which have become so loud, by advertising our claims. We
psychoanalysts have repeatedly been threatened by our medical
colleagues, even in open congresses, that the eyes of the suf-
fering public must be opened to the worthlessness of this
method of treatment by a statistical collection of analytic failures
and injuries. But such a collection, aside from the biased, de-
nunciatory character of its purpose, would hardly be able to
give a correct picture of the therapeutic values of analysis.
Analytic therapy is, as you know, still young; it took a long
time to establish the technique, and this could be done only
during the course of the work and under the influence of ac-
cumulating experience. As a result of the difficulties of instruc-
tion the physician who begins the practice of psychoanalysis is
more dependent upon his capacity to develop on his own account
than is the ordinary specialist, and the results he achieves in
his first years can never be taken as indicative of the possibilities
of analytic therapy.

Many attempts at treatment failed in the early years of
analysis because they were made on cases that were not at all
suited to the procedure, and which today we exclude by our
classification of symptoms. But this classification could be
made only after practice. In the beginning we did not know that
paranoia and dementia praecox are, in their fully developed
phases, inaccessible, and we were justified in trying out our
method on all kinds of conditions. Besides, the greatest number
of failures in those first years were not due to the fault of the
physician or because of unsuitable choice of subjects, but rather

398 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

to the tmpropitiousness of external conditions. "We have hitherto
spoken only of internal resistances, those of the patient, which
are necessary and may be overcome. External resistances to
psychoanalysis, due to the circumstances of the patient and his
environment, have little theoretical interest, but are of great
practical importance. Psychoanalytic treatment may be com-
pared to a surgical operation, and has the right to be undertaken
under circumstances favorable to its success. You know what
precautions the surgeon is accustomed to take: a suitable room,
good light, assistance, exclusion of relatives, etc. How many
operations would be successful, do you think, if they had to be
performed in the presence of all the members of the family,
who would put their fingers into the field of operation and cry
aloud at every cut of the knife? The interference of relatives
in psychoanalytical treatment is a very great danger, a danger
one does not know how to meet. "We are armed against the
internal resistances of the patient which we recognize as neces-
sary, but how are we to protect ourselves against external re-
sistance ? It is impossible to approach the relatives of the patient
with any sort of explanation, one cannot influence them to hold
aloof from the whole affair, and one cannot get into league with
them because we then run the danger of losing the confidence of
the patient, who rightly demands that we in whom he confides
take his part. Besides, those who know the rifts that are often
formed in family life will not be surprised as analysts when
they discover that the patient's nearest relatives are less inter
ested in seeing him cured than in having him remain as he is.
"Where, as is so often the case, the neurosis is connected with
conflicts with members of the family, the healthy member does not
hesitate long in the choice between his own interest and that
of the cure of the patient. It is not surprising if a husband
looks with disfavor upon a treatment in which, as he may cor-
rectly suspect, the register of his sins is unrolled; nor are we
surprised, and surely we cannot take the blame, when our efforts
remain fruitless and are prematurely broken off because the
resistance of the husband is added to that of the sick wife.
We had only undertaken something which, under the existing
circumstance, it was impossible to carry out.

Instead of many cases, I shall tell you of just one in which,
because of professional precautions, I was destined to play a

Analytical Therapy 399

ead role. Many years ago I treated a young girl who for a
long time was afraid to go on the street, or to remain at home
alone. The patient hesitatingly admitted that her phantasy had
been caused by accidentally observing affectionate relations be-
tween her mother and a well-to-do friend of the family. But
she was so clumsy — or perhaps so sly — as to give her mother a
hint of what had been discussed during the analysis, and changed
her behavior toward her mother, insisting that no one but her
mother should protect her against the fear of being alone, and
anxiously barring the way when her mother wished to leave
the house. The mother had previously been very nervous herself,
but had been cured years before in a hydropathic sanatorium.
Let us say, in that institution she made the acquaintance of the
man with whom she was to enter upon the relationship which
was able to satisfy her in every respect. Becoming suspicious
of the stormy demands of the girl, the mother suddenly realized
the meaning of her daughter's fear. She must have made herself
sick to imprison her mother and to rob her of the freedom she
needed to maintain relations with her lover. Immediately the
mother made an end to the harmful treatment. The girl was put
into a sanatorium for the nervous and exhibited for many years
as ' ' a poor victim of psychoanalysis. ' ' For just as long a period
I was pursued by evil slander, due to the unfavorable outcome
of this case. I maintained silence because I thought myself
bound by the rules of professional discretion. Years later I
learned from a colleague who had visited the institution and had
seen the agoraphobic girl there, that the relationship between
the mother and the wealthy friend of the family was known all
over town, and apparently connived at by the husband and
father. It was to this "secret'' that our treatment had been
sacrificed.

In the years before the war, when the influx of patients from
all parts made me independent of the favor or disfavor of my
native city, I followed the rule of not treating anyone who was
not sui juris, was not independent of all other persons in his
essential relations of life. Every psychoanalyst cannot do this.
You may conclude from my warning against the relatives of
patients that for purposes of psychoanalysis we should take
the patients away from their families, and should limit this
therapy to the inmates of sanatoriums. I should not agree with

400 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

you in this; it is much more beneficial for the patients, if they
are not in a stage of great exhaustion, to continue in the same
circumstances under which they must master the tasks set for
them during the treatment. But the relatives ought not to
counteract this advantage by their behavior, and above all, they
should not antagonize and oppose the endeavors of the physician.
But how are we to contend against these influences which are so
inaccessible to us ! You see how much the prospects of a treat-
ment are determined by the social surroundings and the cultural
conditions of a family.

This offers a sad outlook indeed for the effectiveness of psycho-
analysis as a therapy, even if we can explain the great majority
of our failures by putting the blame on such disturbing external
factors ! Friends of analysis have advised us to counterbalance
such a collection of failures by means of a statistical compilation
on our part of our successful cases. Yet I could not try myself
to do this. I tried to explain that statistics would be worthless
if the collected cases were not comparable, and in fact, the
various neuroses which we have undertaken to treat could, as a
matter of fact, hardly be compared on the same basis, since they
differed in many fundamental respects. Besides, the period of
time over which we could report was too short to permit us to
judge the permanency of our cures, and concerning certain cases
we could not have given any information whatever. They re-
lated to persons who had kept their ailments, as well as their
treatment, secret, and whose cure must necessarily be kept secret
as well. The strongest hindrance, however, lay in the knowledge
that men behave most irrationally in matters of therapy, and
that we have no prospect of attaining anything by an appeal
to reason. A therapeutic novelty is received either with frenzied
enthusiasm, as was the case when Koch first made public his
tuberculin against tuberculosis, or it is treated with abysmal
distrust, as was the really blessed vaccination of Jenner, which
even today retains implacable opponents. There was a very
obvious prejudice against psychoanalysis. "When we had cured
a very difficult case we would hear it said : ' ' That is no proof,
he would have become well by himself in all this time." Yet
when a patient who had already gone through four cycles of
depression and mania came into my care during a temporary
cessation in the melancholia, and three weeks later found herself

Analytical Therapy 401

in the beginnings of a new attack, all the members of the family
as well as the high medical authorities called into consultation,
were convinced that the new attack could only be the result of
the attempted analysis. Against prejudice we are powerless;
you see it again in the prejudices that one group of warring
nations has developed against the other. The most sensible thing
for us to do is to wait and allow time to wear it away. Some
day the same persons think quite differently about the same
things than before. Why they formerly thought otherwise re-
mains the dark secret.

It may be possible that the prejudice against psychoanalysis
is already on the wane. The continual spread of psychoanalytic
doctrine, the increase of the number of physicians in many lands
who treat analytically, seems to vouch for it. "When I was a
young physician I was caught in just such a storm of outraged
feeling of the medical profession toward hypnosis, treatment
by suggestion, which today is contrasted with psychoanalysis by
"sober" men. Hypnotism did not, however, as a therapeutic
agent, live up to its promises ; we psychoanalysts may call our-
selves its rightful heirs, and we have not forgotten the large
amount of encouragement and theoretical explanation we owe
to it. The injuries blamed upon psychoanalysis are limited
essentially to temporary aggravation of the conflict when the
analysis is clumsily handled, or when it is broken off unfinished.
You have heard our justification for our form of treatment, and
you can form your own opinion as to whether or not our en-
deavors are likely to lead to lasting injury. Misuse of psycho-
analysis is possible in various ways ; above all, transference is a
dangerous remedy in the hands of an unconscientious physician.
But no professional method of procedure is protected from mis-
use ; a knife that is not sharp is of no use in effecting a cure.

I have thus reached the end, ladies and gentlemen. It is
more than the customary formal speech when I admit that I
am myself keenly depressed over the many faults in the lectures I
have just delivered. First of all, I am sorry that I have so often
promised to return to a subject only slightly touched upon at
the time, and then found that the context has not made it pos-
sible to keep my word. I have undertaken to inform you con-
cerning an unfinished thing, still in the process of development,
and my brief exposition itself was an incomplete thing.- Often

402 Introduction to Psychoanalysis

I presented the evidence and then did not myself draw the
conclusion. But I could not endeavor to make you masters of
the subject. I tried only to give you some explanation and
stimulation.

END

INDEX

Abel, C., 195

Abel, R., 148

Abraham, K., 284, 358

Abstinence, 299

Accidental and symptomatic acts, 42

Accumulated and combined errors,
37

Adler, A., 203, 330, 351

Agoraphobia, 227, 233

Alexander, dream of, 65

Altruism, 360

Ambivalence, 369

Amnesia, 244; childhood, 168; hys-
terical, 245; infantile, 245; of the
neurotic, 244

Analyses of dreams, 94, 95, 96, 97,
98, 153

Analysis, experimental, dream for.
93

Analytical therapy, 372, 388

Andreas, Lou, 272

Anxiety, 340, 342; dream, 183;
equivalents, 347; form of neurotic
fear, 346; hysteria, 233, 259, 316,
346; hysteria, resistance in, 250;
neurosis, 338, 344, 347

Anxious expectation, 344

Archaic remnants and infantilism in
the dream, 167

Art, and the neurosis, 326

Association experiment, 86; free, 84

Auto-eroticism, 359

Back, George, 108

Basedowi, M., 336

Beheading symbol, 231

Bernheim, 81, 240, 385, 888

Binet, 302

Binz, 66

Birth of the hero, myths, 132

Birth, the source of fear, 343; sym-
bols of, 132; theories of children,
274

Bleuler, 86, 369

Bloch, Ivan, 265

Bolsche, W., 307

Breuer, J., 221, 232, 241, 242, 253,
254, 388

Breughel, P., 263

Castration complex, 175
Censor, dream, 110

Charcot, 119

Child, sexual life of, 268, 281

Childhood amnesia, 168; dreams of,
101; egoism in, 171; experiences,
phantasy in, 319; loss of memory
for, 168; prophylaxis, 317

Children, fear in, 350; sexual curios-
ity of, 274

Children's dreams, 102; theories of
birth, 274

Choice of an object, 368

Clinical problem, 244

Common elements of dreams, 67, 69,
75

Complex, castration, 175; family,
285; Oedipus, 174, 285; parent,
289

Compulsion neurosis, 222, 227, 259,
261, 267, 298, 326; fear in, 349;
manifestations of, 222

Compulsion neurotics, resistance in,
250, 251; symptoms, analysis of,
224

Compulsive activity, meaning of,
239; acts, 223; washing as, 233

Condensation, 142

Conflict, role of, in neurosis, 302,
305

Conscious, definition of, 90

Conversion-hysteria, 259, 339

Criticism of dream, 194; of psycho-
analysis, reasons for, 246

Darwin, Charles, 247, 345

Day dreams, 76, 105, 324

Death in dreams, 133; wishes, 169

Definition of psychoanalysis, 1

Delusion, 216

Dementia prsecox, 339, 358, 363

Development and regression, theo-
ries of, 294

Diderot, 292

Difficulties of psychoanalysis, 2, 5

Disease, secondary advantage of,
334

Disguise-memories, 168

Displacement, 114, 144

Dream, the, 63; of Alexander, 65;
anxiety, 183; aproaches to study
of, 82; archaic remnants and in-
fantilism in the, 167; censor, 110;
character of, 69; criticism of,

403

40-1

Index

194; day, 76, 105; definition of, 67,
68; difficulties and preliminary ap-
proach to, 63; distortion in, 101,
110, 183; doubtful points concern-
ing, 194; for experimental analy-
sis, 93; hypothesis and technique
of interpretation of, 78; infantile,
183; interpretation, rules to be
observed in, 91, 92; manifest and
latent content of, 90, 96; of a
prisoner, 109; the reaction to
sleep-disturbing stimuli, 70; stim-
uli in, 71, 73; symbolism in, 122

Dreams analysed, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98,
153; of childhood, 101; children's,
102; children's, elements of, 101-5;
common elements of, 67, 69, 75;
death in, 133; elaboration in, 74;
examples of, 111; experimentally
induced in, 71 ; of neurotics, 395 ;
typical, 234; visual forms in, 75;
wish fulfillment, 107; dream-work,
141 ; processes of, 142

Du prel, 108

Ego, development of, 304; impulses,
303; instincts, 356; psychology,
365; regressions, 310

Egoism, 360; in childhood, 171

Elements of children's dreams, 101,
102, 103, 104, 105

Erogenous zones, 271

Erotomania, 366

Errors, accumulated and combined,
37; forgetting names, 34; forget-
ting projects, 34; losing and mis-
laying objects, 36; misreading, 51;
proved by further developments,
39; psychology of, 10, 23; re-
peated, 37; slips of the pen, 49;
of the tongue, 16, 18; expectant
fear, 344

Fact, principle of, 309

Family-complex, 289

Fear, 340, 342; in children, 350; in
compulsion neurosis, 349; expect-
ant, 344; in hysteria, 348; of the
manifold, 344; neurotic, 341; anx-
iety, form of, 346; clinical obser-
vations on, 347; origin of, 350; and
real fear, connection between, 350;
real, 341; and neurotic fear, con-
nection between, 350

Fechner, G. T., 69

Federn, P., 127

Ferenczi, 304

Fetichism, 302

Fetichists, 264

Fixation of the instinct, 295; trau-
matic, 236

Flaubert, G., 263

Fliess, W., 277

Fontaine, Th., 324

Fore-conscious, 256

Forgetting, defense against unpleas-
ant recollections, 56; impressions
and experiences, 56; names, 34,
55 ; plans, 52 ; projects, 34 ; proper
names, 87

Free association, 84; name analysis
by, 85

Free-floating fear, 344

Fright, 342

Hall, Stanley, 344, 355

Hildebrand, 71

Hoffman, 321

Homosexualists, 266

Homosexuality, 263

Hypnosis, 253, 386; psycho-therapy

by, 253

Hypnotic and psychoanalytic sug-
gestion, difference between, 390
Hypnotism, 81, 388
Hypochondria, 338, 339, 362
Hysteria, 233, 245, 246, 261, 266, 297;

anxiety, 233, 316; conversion, 339;

fear in, 348
Hysterical amnesias, 245; backache,

339; headache, 339; identification,

369; vomiting, 233
Illness as a defense, 332
Imago, 139
Incest, 176, 290
Infantile amnesias, 245; dream, 183;

fear, 353; neurosis, 316; sexuality,

272, 279
Infantilism in the dream, archaic

remnants and, 167
Inferiority, 351
Inhibition, 294
Instinct, fixation of, 295
Intellectual resistances, 251
Introversion, 326
Inversions, 149, 263

James-Lange theory of emotion,

343

Janet, P., 221
Jealousy, obsession of, 216
Jenner, 400
Jung, C. J., 86, 232, 325, 357

Koch, 400
Krauss, F. S., 134

Latent dream content, 90, 96
Leuret, 221

Index

405

Levy, L., 133

Libido, 116, 270; development of,
277, 282; fixation, 300; regressions
of, 297; theory, the, 356

Lichtenberg, 27

Lindner, 271

Losing and mislaying objects, 36,
57

Loss of memory for childhood, 168

Maeder, A., 39, 202

Mania of persecution, 366; of jeal-
ousy, 366

Manifest dream content, 90, 96

Masochists, 264

Maury, 66, 71

Mayer, 16

Mechanism of the tongue slip, 46

Megalomania, 366

Melancholia, 369

Memory gaps, 244; loss of, for child-
hood, 168

Meringer, 16

Misreading, 51

Mistakes, general observations on,
57

Myths, birth of the hero, 132

Name analysis by free association,
85

Naecke, P., 359

Narcism, 359, 360

Narcistic identification, 369; neu-
roses, 298, 365; and transference,
386

Negative transference, 383

Nervousness, fear and, 340; ordin-
ary, 328

Nestroy, 305

Neurasthenia, 338, 339

Neurosis, anxiety, 344; art and,
326; common experiences in his-
tory of, 321; compulsion, 222; de-
termining factor in, 321; develop-
ment of symptoms of, 311; etiol-
ogy of, 296; general theory of,
294; infantile, 316; narcistic, 298;
schematic representation of cause
of, 315; spontaneous, 237; symp-
toms of, 317; traumatic, 237; true,
difference between the symptoms
of, and the psychoneurosis, 336

Neurotic fear, anxiety form of, 346;
clinical observations on, 347;
manifestations of, 344; origin of,
350; and real fear, connection be-
tween, 350

Neurotic manifestations, psychoan-
alytic conception of, 211; symp-
toms, evolution of, 244; meaning

of, 221; objections to interpreta-
tions of, 260

Neurotics, dreams of, 395

Nordenskjold, Otto, 107

Oberlander, 334
Object, choice of, 368
Obsession of jealousy, 216
Oedipus complex, 174, 285
Onanism, 272, 274
Organic pleasure, 280

Paranoia, 266, 339, 366

Paraphrenia, 339, 366

Parent-complex, 289

Pathological ritual, 228

Patricide, 290

Perverse, 263; sexuality, 268, 2T9

Perversions, sex, 175, 278

Pfister, 199

Phantasies, primal, 323

Phantasy in childhood experiences,
319; in children, 322

Phobias, 344; analysis of, 353; situa-
tion, in children, 352

Pleasure, principle of, 309

Pleasure-striving, 116

Pre-genital sexual organization, 283

Primal phantasies, 323

Principle of fact, 309; of pleasure,
309

Psychiatry, psychoanalysis and, 209 ;
therapeutics of, 220

Psychic flight from unpleasantness,
55; process, meaning of, 23; defi-
nition of, 7; in sleeping and wak-
ing, differences between, 69

Psychoanalysis, definition of, 1; dif-
ficulties of, 2, 5; and psychiatry,
209; purpose of, 6; reasons for
criticism of, 246; therapeutics of,
220

Psychoanalytic conception of neuro-
tic manifestations, 211; sugges-
tion, hypnotic and difference be-
tween, 390

Psychology of errors, 10

Psychoneurosis, difference between
the symptoms of the true neurosis
and, 336; true neurosis and, con-
nection between symptoms of, 338

Psychotherapy by hypnosis, 253

Purpose of psychoanalysis, 6

Rank, O., 21, 108, 132, 139, 154, 17.1,

292

Reaction-formations, 326
Regression, 295, 296; of Libido, 297;

theories of development and, 294
Reik, Th, 290

406

Index

Repression, 255

Reproduction, 269; sexuality and,
277

Resistance, 92, 248; in anxiety hy-
steria, 250; in compulsion neuro-
tics, 250, 251; external, 398; forms
taken by, 250; internal, 398; in-
tellectual, 251; in narcistic neu-
rosis, 365

Ritual, pathological, 228; sleep, 227

Roux, 314

Sachs, Hanns, 139, 173

Sadistico-anal sexual organization,
283

Sadists, 264

Schemer, K. A., 124

Schirmer, 74

Schwind, 109

Secondary treatment, 151

Sex symbols, 126

Sex, the third, 263

Sexual curiosity of children, 274;
denninition of concept, 262; de-
development, 284; instincts, 356;
life of the child, 268, 281; life of
man, 262; organizations, 277, 283;
perversions, 175, 278

Sexuality, perverse, 268; and repro-
duction, 277

Siebault, 81

Silberer, V., 203

Situation-phobia, 345; phobias in
children, 352

Sleep, definition of, 67; ritual, 227

Slips of the tongue, 16; effects of,
18; explanation of, 25, 46; general
observations on, 48; of the pen, 49

Sperber, H., 138

Spontaneous neuroses, 237

Stekel, W., 203

Struuelpeter, 321

Sublimation, 8, 300

Substitute names, 87

Suggestibility, 386

Suggestion, 386, 388

Suppression, 46, 248, 256, 259, 296,
298

Symbol, 123; beheading, 231

Symbolism in the dream, 122; in
every day life, 130

Symbols, 125, 126; of birth, 132;
sex, 126

Symptomatic acts, accidental and, 42

Symptom-development, 259 ; inter-
pretation, 259; purpose of, 258,
259

Symptoms, individual, 232, 234;
meaning of, 221; of neurosis,
development of, 311; neurotic,
evolution of, 244; objections to
interpretations of, 260; signifi-
cance of phantasy for the de-
velopment of, 324 ;" typical, 233

System of the unconscious, fore-
conscious and the conscious, 255-
257

Technique in dream interpretation,
82

Therapy, analytical, 372

Therapeutics of psychiatry, 220; of
psychoanalysis, 220

Third sex, 263

Tongue slip, mechanism of, 46, 49

Topophobia, 233

Transference, 25, 372, 379; narcistic
neuroses and, 386; neuroses, 259,
339, 384

Translation of thoughts into visual
images, 145

Traumatic fixation, 236; neuroses,
237

Trenck, 108

True neuroses, 338; and psycho-
neuroses, connection between
symptoms of, 338; symptoms of,
336

Typical symptoms, 234

Unconscious, the, 236, 255; defini-
tion of, 90; psychological proc-
esses, 240

Void, J. Hourly, 66, 127
Vomiting, hysterical, 233
von Briicke, 295

Wallace, 247

Washing, a compulsive act, 233
Wishes, death, 169
Wishfulfillment, 180; in dreams, 104,

107; negative, 261; positive, 261
Wundt school, 86

Zola, Emile, 224
Zurich school, 36

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