102

XI

Addenda

IN THE course of the foregoing remarks a number of
topics were touched upon which had to be dismissed
prematurely, but which shall now be brought together
in order that they may receive the share of attention
which is their due.

A. Certain Modifications of Views Previously Held

(a) Resistance and Anticathexis

It is an important element of the theory of repression
that this process is not one which takes place on a single
occasion but is one demanding a continuous expenditure
of effort. Should this effort be intermitted, the repressed
impulse, which receives a continuous influx from its
sources of origin, would thereupon strike out upon the
same path off which it had been forced, and the repres-
sion would have failed of its purpose or would have to be
repeated an indefinite number of times. Thus from the
uninterrupted character of the instinctual impulse there
arises the demand on the ego to insure its defense by an
unremitting expenditure of effort. This action for the
protection of the repression is what we experience, in the
course of our therapeutic efforts, as resistance. Resistance
presupposes what I have termed anticathexis. Such an
anticathexis is evident in compulsion neurosis. It there
makes its appearance as an alteration of the ego, as a

103

ADDENDA

reaction formation in the ego, through an intensification
of the attitude which is the antithesis of the instinctual
tendency to be repressed (pity, conscientiousness, clean-
liness). These reaction formations in compulsion neuro-
sis are all of them exaggerations of normal character traits
developed during the latency period. It is much more
difficult to demonstrate anticathexis in hysteria, where,
theoretically, it is just as indispensable. In hysteria, too,
a certain amount of ego-alteration through reaction for-
mation is evident, in many circumstances becoming so
striking that it claims attention as the cardinal symptom
in the clinical syndrome. In this manner, for example,
the ambivalency conflict in hysteria is resolved; hate for
a loved person is kept submerged by an excess of tender-
ness towards him and of anxious concern about him. As
a point of difference from compulsion neurosis, how-
ever, one must emphasize the fact that such reaction
formations do not manifest the general nature of char-
acter traits but are confined to quite specific situations.
The hysterical woman, for example, who treats with ex-
cessive tenderness the children whom she really hates,
does not on that account become more disposed to love
in general than other women, not even more tender
towards other children. The reaction formation of hys-
teria adheres tenaciously to a specific object and is not
elevated to the status of a general disposition of the ego.
Of compulsion neurosis it is precisely this universaliza-
tion, the looseness of object relationships, the displace-
ability marking object choice, which are characteristic.

Another type of anticathexis seems more consonant
with the specific nature of hysteria. The repressed in-
stinctual impulse may be activated (recathected) from

104

two directions: from within, through an increase in
strength of the instinct in question, an increase derived
from its internal sources of excitation; or from without,
through the perception of an object desired by the in-
stinct. Now the hysterical type of anticathexis is predom-
inantly directed outwards, against the dangerous percep-
tion; it takes the form of a special watchfulness which,
through restrictions imposed upon the ego, avoids situa-
tions in which such a perception would inevitably occur,
and which effects the withdrawal of attention from the
perception if this has actually occurred. Certain French
writers (for example, Laforgue) have recently designated
this process observed in hysteria by the special term
“scotomization.” Even more strikingly than in hysteria is
this technique of anticathexis displayed in the phobias,
the interest of which is concentrated upon effecting a
further and further removal of the possibility of experi-
encing the dreaded perception. The contrast in the di-
rection of the anticathexis as between hysteria and pho-
bia on the one hand and compulsion neurosis on the
other appears to be of importance, even though this an-
tithesis is not an absolute one. It leads us to suppose that
a rather intimate connection exists between repression
and external anticathexis, as well as between regression
and internal anticathexis (ego-alteration through reac-
tion formation). Defense against dangerous perceptions
is, moreover, a general task of neurosis. The various
commands and prohibitions of compulsion neurosis
presumably serve the same purpose.

We have already made it clear that the resistance which
we have to overcome in analysis is produced by the ego,

105

ADDENDA

which clings tenaciously to its anticathexe-
ses. The ego finds it difficult to turn its attention to perceptions and ideas
the avoidance of which it had until then made a rule, or to acknowledge as
belonging to it impulses which constitute the most complete antithesis to
those familiar to it as its own. Our combating of resistance in the analysis is
based upon this conception of it. We make the resistance conscious where,
as so often, in consequence of its connection with the repressed, it is uncon-
scious; we oppose logical arguments to it when or after it has become con-
scious, promising the ego advantages and rewards if it renounces the
resistance. As regards the resistance of the ego there is therefore nothing to
call into question or to correct. On the other hand, the question is whether
resistance alone covers the situation that confronts us in analysis. We expe-
rience the fact that the ego still finds it difficult to nullify its repressions
even after it has resolved to give up its resistances, and we have desig-
nated the phase of strenuous effort which follows upon this laudable resolu-
tion as the period of “working through.” Now it is easy to recognize the
dynamic factor which makes this working through necessary and intelli-
gible. It can but be that after the cessation of the ego-resistance there is
still the power of the repetition compulsion, the attraction exerted by its
unconscious prototypes upon the repressed instinctual process, to be over-
come; nor is it in any way inconsistent with this to designate this factor
as the resistance of the unconscious. Let us not grudge the effort necessary
for such emendations; they are desirable if they enhance our understanding
a little, and no discredit if they do not negative our previous

106

conceptions but enrich them, perhaps make a generality
more specific or broaden a conception which was too nar-
row.

It must not be supposed that through the foregoing
emendation we have achieved a complete perspective re-
garding the kinds of resistance which confront us in
analysis. When we go more deeply into the matter we
note, rather, that we have five varieties of resistance to
contend with, which derive from three sources, namely,
from the ego, from the id, and from the superego—
whereby the ego turns out to be the source of three forms
of resistance differing from one another in their dy-
namics. The first of these three ego-resistances is the re-
pression resistance just dealt with, about which there is
least that is new to be said. From this form there is to
be distinguished the transference resistance, which is of
the same character but which makes itself evident in the
analysis in other and far more definite ways, since it has
succeeded in creating a relationship to the analytic sit-
uation or to the person of the analyst and in reviving
thereby, as if in the flesh, so to speak, a repression which
should be merely recalled. That resistance is also an ego-
resistance, although of quite a different nature, which
emanates from the gain of illness and is based upon the
inclusion of the symptom in the ego. It corresponds to
opposition to the renunciation of a gratification or a
mode of relief. The fourth variety of resistance—that of
the id—we have just now made responsible for the neces-
sity of working through. The fifth type of resistance, that
of the superego, the last recognized and the most obscure,
but not always the weakest, seems to derive from the

107

ADDENDA

sense of guilt or need of punishment; it resists any success
and hence also recovery through the analysis.

(b) Anxiety from Transformation of Libido

The conception of anxiety set forth in the present work
differs somewhat from that which previously seemed to
me to be legitimate. Formerly I considered anxiety a
general reaction on the part of the ego under conditions
of displeasure, I tried to explain its appearance on eco-
nomic grounds exclusively, and, relying upon the results
of investigation of the “actual” neuroses, I assumed that
libido (sexual excitation) rejected by the ego or not uti-
lized by it found direct discharge in the form of anxiety.
But the fact cannot be overlooked that these various defi-
nitions do not accord very well with one another, or at
least they do not follow necessarily from one another.
Moreover, the appearance was given of an especially in-
timate relationship between anxiety and libido which
again did not harmonize with the general character of
anxiety as a reaction of displeasure.

The objection to this conception arose out of the effort
to make the ego the sole site of anxiety, and was thus one
of the results of the articulation of the psychic apparatus
attempted in The Ego and the Id. It was natural, in the
earlier conception, to consider the libido of the repressed
instinctual impulse the source of anxiety; according to
the newer one, the ego, rather, was held responsible for
this anxiety. We have, therefore, ego-anxiety or instinc-
tual (id-) anxiety. Since the ego works with desexualized
energy, the intimate connection between anxiety and
libido was also loosened in the new version. I hope I have

108

succeeded in at least clarifying the contradiction and in
clearly demarcating the boundary lines of uncertainty.
Rank’s reminder that the affect of anxiety is, as I my-
self at first maintained, a result of the birth process and a
repetition of the situation lived through at that time,
necessitated a reëxamination of the problem of anxiety.
With his conception of birth as a trauma, of the anxiety
state as a reaction of discharge thereof, and of every fresh
occurrence of anxiety as an attempt to “abreact” the
trauma more and more completely, I was unable to get
further. There resulted the necessity of going back from
the anxiety reaction to the danger situation behind it.
With the introduction of this factor new points of view
were presented for consideration. Birth became the pro-
totype of all later danger situations which arose under
the new conditions imposed by an altered form of exist-
ence and by the advance of psychic development. But its
own significance was limited to this prototypic relation-
ship to danger. The anxiety felt in the process of birth
now became the prototype of an affective state which was
obliged to share the fate of other affects. It was repro-
duced either automatically in situations which were
analogous to that of its origin and as an inexpedient type
of reaction, after having been an appropriate one in the
initial situation of danger; or else the ego acquired con-
trol over this affect and reproduced it itself, making use
of it as a warning of danger and as a means of rousing
into action the pleasure-pain mechanism. The biological
significance of anxiety was validated by the recognizing
of anxiety as the universal reaction to the situation of
danger; the rôle of the ego as the site of anxiety was con-
firmed by the granting to the ego of the function of pro-

109

ducing anxiety according to its needs. To anxiety in later
life were thus attributed two modes of origin: the one
involuntary, automatic, economically justified whenever
there arose a situation of danger analogous to birth; the
other, produced by the ego when such a situation merely
threatened, in order to procure its avoidance. In this
second case the ego submitted to anxiety as to a vaccina-
tion, so to speak, in order to escape a virulent attack by
means of an attenuated case of the disease. In its unmis-
takable effort to limit the painful experience to an inti-
mation, a signal, the ego acted as if it had vividly pictured
the danger situation. How the various danger situations
develop in succession and yet remain genetically linked
with one another has already been set forth in detail. Per-
haps we shall succeed in penetrating a little further into
the understanding of anxiety if we attack the problem of
the relation between neurotic anxiety and true anxiety.
The direct transforming of libido into anxiety previ-
ously assumed has now become of less interest to us. If
we do take it into consideration, we have several possi-
bilities to differentiate. In the case of anxiety which the
ego instigates as a signal, this transformation does not
enter in, and thus plays no part in any of the danger
situations which impel the ego to initiate a repression.
The libidinal cathexis of the repressed instinctual im-
pulse is put to another use, as is most clearly observable
in conversion hysteria, than that of transformation into
and discharge as anxiety. On the other hand, in our
further discussion of the danger situation we shall en-
counter an instance of anxiety development which is
probably to be regarded otherwise.

110

(c) Repression and Defense

In connection with the discussion of the problem of
anxiety I resurrected a concept—or, more modestly ex-
pressed, a term—of which I made use exclusively when
I first began my studies thirty years ago¹ but which I
later dropped; I mean that of the process of defense.² I
substituted for it, later on, that of repression, but the
relation between the two remained indefinite. I now
think that it confers a distinct disadvantage to readopt
the old concept of defense if in doing so it is laid down
that this shall be the general designation for all the tech-
niques of which the ego makes use in the conflicts which
potentially lead to neurosis, while repression is the term
reserved for one particular method of defense, one which
because of the direction that our investigations took was
the first with which we became acquainted.

Even a purely terminological innovation is justifiable
if it is expressive of a new way of looking at the matter
or of an extension of our insight. Now the readopting of
the concept of defense and the restricting of that of re-
pression takes into consideration a fact which has long
been known but which has acquired additional signifi-
cance through certain recent findings. We first met with
repression and symptom formation in hysteria; we saw
that the perceptual content of excitant experiences, the
ideational content of pathogenic complexes, is forgotten
and excluded from reproduction in memory, and we
accordingly recognized in their withholding from con-
sciousness a cardinal characteristic of hysterical repres-

¹ Now forty years ago.—Translator’s Note.

² See The Defense Neuro-psychoses, Collected Papers, Vol. I.

111

sion. Later we studied compulsion neurosis and found
that in this disorder the pathogenic incidents are not for-
gotten. They remain conscious, but they become, in some
manner which we still do not understand, “isolated,” so
that approximately the same result it attained as through
hysterical amnesia. But the difference is great enough to
justify our belief that the process by means of which the
compulsion neurosis takes care of an instinctual demand
could not be the same as in hysteria. Further investigation
has shown us that in compulsion neurosis there is
brought about, under the influence of the ego’s opposi-
tion, a regression of the instinctual impulses to an earlier
libidinal phase such as does not, it is true, make repres-
sion superfluous, but evidently operates to the same ef-
fect as repression. We have furthermore seen that the
anticathexis which we assumed to be present in the case
also of hysteria, plays in compulsion neurosis, in the form
of reactive ego-alteration, a particularly large rôle in the
protection of the ego; we have become cognizant of a
process of “isolation,” of the technique of which we can
still give no account, which creates for itself a direct symp-
tomatic expression, and likewise of what might be termed
the magical procedure of “undoing,” of the apotropaic
trend of which there can be no doubt, but which has no
further similarity to the process of “repression.” These
phenomena are sufficient reason for reintroducing the
old concept of defense, which is able to embrace all these
processes of similar purpose—namely, protection of the
ego against instinctual demands—and for subsuming re-
pression under this rubric as a special case thereof. The
importance of such a nomenclature is increased if one
considers the possibility that a deeper insight might re-

112

veal a close affinity between particular forms of defense
and certain specific disorders, as for example between
repression and hysteria. Our expectation even extends to
the possibility of another important interrelationship. It
may easily be that the psychic apparatus utilizes other
methods of defense prior to the clear-
cut differentiation
of ego and id, prior to the erecting of a superego, than it
does after these stages of organization have been attained.

B. Supplementary Remarks on Anxiety

There are certain characteristics possessed by the affect of
anxiety, the investigation of which gives promise of fur-
ther enlightenment. Anxiety is undeniably related to ex-
pectation; one feels anxiety lest something occur.¹⁾ It is
endowed with a certain character of indefiniteness and
objectlessness; correct usage even changes its name when
it has found an object, and in that case speaks instead of
dread. Anxiety has, moreover, in addition to its relation
to danger, a relation to neurosis, over the clarification
of which we have expended much labor. For there arises
the question why it is that not all anxiety reactions are
neurotic, why we recognize so many of them as normal;
and, finally, the distinction between true anxiety (Real-
angst) and neurotic anxiety needs to be properly evalu-
ated.

Let us start with the latter task. The progress we have
made has consisted in tracing a backward path from the
reaction of anxiety to the situation of danger. If we apply
the same process to the problem of true anxiety, its solu-
tion

¹⁾That is, the German usage is: Angst vor etwas–literally, anxiety
before something, instead of of something.–TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

113

ADDENDA

tion becomes simple. A real danger is a danger which we
know, a true anxiety the anxiety in regard to such a
known danger. Neurotic anxiety is anxiety in regard to
a danger which we do not know. The neurotic danger
must first be sought, therefore: analysis has taught us that
it is an instinctual danger. By bringing into consciousness
this danger of which the ego is unaware, we obliterate
the distinction between true and neurotic anxiety and
are able to treat the latter as we would the former.

In the case of a true danger we develop two reactions:
an affective one, the outbreak of anxiety, and action look-
ing to protection from the danger. Presumably the same
thing happens in the case of instinctual danger. We are
acquainted with the instance of the purposeful coöpera-
tion of the two reactions, wherein one of them gives the
signal for the initiation of the other, but we know also
of a useless and inexpedient form, namely, paralysis
through fear, in which the one is promulgated at the
expense of the other.

There are cases in which the attributes of true and of
neurotic anxiety are intermingled. The danger is known
and of the real type, but the anxiety in regard to it is
disproportionately great, greater than in our judgment it
ought to be. It is by this excess that the neurotic element
stands revealed. But these cases contribute nothing
which is new in principle. Analysis shows that involved
with the known reality danger is an unrecognized instinc-
tual danger.

It would be better not to be satisfied even with reduc-
ing anxiety to danger. What is the kernel, what is the true
significance, of the danger situation? Evidently it is the
estimation of our strength in comparison with its mag-

114

nitude, the admission of our helpless-
ness in the face of it
—of material helplessness in the case of a true danger,
of psychic helplessness in that of instinctual danger. Our
judgment in this regard will be guided by actual experi-
ence; whether one is mistaken in one’s evaluation makes
no difference to the result. Let us call our experience in
a situation of helplessness of this kind a traumatic situa-
tion; we then have a sufficient basis for distinguishing the
traumatic from the danger situation.

Now it is an important advance in self-protection
when this traumatic situation of helplessness is not
merely awaited but is foreseen, anticipated. Let us call
the situation in which resides the cause of this anticipa-
tion the danger situation; it is in this latter that the signal
of anxiety is given. What this means is: I anticipate that
a situation of helplessness will come about, or the present
situation reminds me of one of the traumatic experiences
which I have previously undergone. Hence I will antici-
pate this trauma; I will act as if it were already present as
long as there is still time to avert it. Anxiety, therefore,
is the expectation of the trauma on the one hand, and on
the other, an attenuated repetition of it. The two char-
acteristics which have struck us with regard to anxiety
have therefore a different origin: its relation to expecta-
tion pertains to the danger situation, its indefiniteness
and objectlessness to the traumatic situation of helpless-
ness which is anticipated in the danger situation.

Having developed this series: anxiety—danger—help-
lessness (trauma), we may summarize the matter as
follows: The danger situation is the recognized, remem-
bered and anticipated situation of helplessness. Anxiety
is the original reaction to helplessness in the traumatic

115

ADDENDA

situation, which is later reproduced as a call for help in
the danger situation. The ego, which has experienced
the trauma passively, now actively repeats an attenuated
reproduction of it with the idea of taking into its own
hands the directing of its course. We know that the child
behaves in such a manner towards all impressions which
he finds painful, by reproducing them in play; through
this method of transition from passivity to activity the
child attempts to cope psychically with its impressions
and experiences. If this is what is meant by “abreacting
a trauma,” no objection can be made to it. But the crux of
the matter is the initial displacement of the anxiety re-
action from its origin in the situation of helplessness
to the anticipation of the latter, the danger situation.
There then ensue the further displacements from the
danger itself to that which occasions the danger, namely,
object loss and the modifications thereof already men-
tioned.

“Spoiling” young children has the undesirable result
that the danger of object loss—the object being the pro-
tection against all situations of helplessness—is overem-
phasized in comparison with all other dangers. It there-
fore encourages persistence in that childhood state of
which both motor and psychic helplessness is character-
istic.

We have so far had no occasion to regard true anxiety
differently from neurotic anxiety. We know the differ-
ence between them; a real danger is one which threatens
from some external object, neurotic danger from an in-
stinctual demand. In so far as this instinctual demand is a
piece of reality, neurotic anxiety as well may be consid-
ered as founded on reality. We have understood that the

116

seemingly extremely intimate relation between anxiety
and neurosis derives from the fact that the ego protects
itself against an instinctual danger in the same manner
as against an external reality danger, but that in conse-
quence of an imperfection of the psychic apparatus this
defensive activity eventuates in neurosis. We have be-
come convinced also that instinctual demands often
become an (internal) danger only because of the fact that
their gratification would bring about an external danger
–because, therefore, this internal danger represents an
external one.

On the other hand, the external (reality) danger must
have undergone internalization if it is to become signifi-
cant for the ego; its relation to a situation of helplessness
which has been lived through must be recognized.¹ An
instinctive recognition of dangers threatening from with-
out does not seem to have been among Nature’s gifts to
man, save to a very moderate degree. Small children are
always doing things which endanger their lives, and for
that reason alone cannot do without the protect-
ing object. In relation to the traumatic situation, against which
one is helpless, external and internal danger, reality dan-
ger and instinctual demand, coincide. Whether in the
one case the ego experience a grief which will not be
assuaged, or in the other a pent-up need incapable-
of

¹It may also be quite often the case that in a danger situation which
is correctly assessed as such a modicum of instinctual anxiety is super-
added to the reality anxiety. The instinctual demand from the gratifica-
tion of which the ego shrinks back would then be the masochistic
one, the destructive impulse turned against the subject’s own person.
Perhaps this superadded element explains the case of the anxiety re-
action becoming excessive and inexpedient, paralyzing. The fear of high
places might have this origin; its hidden feminine significance is sug-
gestive of masochism.

117

gratification, the economic situation is in both cases the
same and motor helplessness finds expression in psychic
helplessness.

The enigmatic phobias of early childhood deserve
mention once again at this point. Certain of them–the
fear of being alone, of the dark, of strangers–we can
understand as reactions to the danger of object loss; with
regard to others–fear of small animals, thunderstorms,
etc.–there is the possibility that they represent the atro-
phied remnants of an innate preparedness against reality
dangers such as is so well developed in other animals. It
is the part of this archaic heritage having to do with ob-
ject loss which alone has utility for man. If such child-
hood phobias become fixed, grow more intense, and
persist into a later period of life, analysis demonstrates
that their content has become connected with instinctual
demands, has become the representative of internal dan-
gers also.

C. Anxiety, Grief and Mourning

So little is known of the psychology of the emotions that
the diffident remarks which follow may bespeak critical
indulgence. It is at the point immediately to be referred
to that the problem confronts us. We were forced to the
conclusion that anxiety is the reaction to the danger of
object loss. Now we already know of a reaction to object
loss–namely, mourning. Therefore the question is,
when do we have the one, when the other? With regard
to mourning, with which we have dealt on a previous
occasion,¹⁾ one of its characteristics remained completely
obscure–its especial painfulness. That separation from

¹⁾See Mourning and Melancholia, Collected Papers, Vol. IV.

118

the object is painful seems sufficiently self-evident. But
the problem is more complicated; thus: When does
separation from the object give rise to anxiety, when to
mourning, and when merely perhaps to grief?

Let us say at once that there is no prospect of supply-
ing an answer to these questions. We shall resign our-
selves to marking out certain boundary lines and discov-
ering a few suggestions.

Our point of departure shall once again be the one
situation which we believe we understand, that of the
infant who sees a strange person in place of his mother.
He then manifests the anxiety which we have interpreted
as due to the danger of object loss. But the situation is
more complicated than this and merits a more detailed
discussion. As to the infant’s anxiety there is, to be sure,
no doubt, but his facial expression and the fact of his
crying lead one to suppose that in addition he feels pain.
It seems as though in him something were fused together
which later will be separated. He is not yet able to dis-
tinguish temporary absence from permanent loss; when
he fails to see his mother on a given occasion, he behaves
as though he would never see her again, and it requires
repeated consoling experiences before he learns that such
a disappearance on his mother’s part is usually followed
by her reappearance. The mother promotes this knowl-
edge, so important to him, by playing with him the fa-
miliar game of covering her face and then to his joy
revealing it again. Thus he is enabled, as it were, to ex-
perience longing without an accompaniment of despair.

The situation in which he misses his mother is not,
owing to his miscomprehension, a danger situation for
him but a traumatic one, or, more correctly, it is a trau-
 

119

matic one if he experiences at that junc-
ture a need which
his mother ought to gratify; it changes into a danger sit-
uation when this need is not immediate. The initial
cause of anxiety, which the ego itself introduces, is there-
fore loss of perception of the object, which becomes
equated with loss of the object. Loss of love does not yet
enter into the situation. Later on, experience teaches that
the object may continue to be present but may have
become angry with the child, and now loss of love on
the part of the object becomes a new and far more en-
during danger and occasion for anxiety.

The traumatic situation of missing the mother differ-
s
in one crucial respect from the traumat-
ic situation of
birth. On that occasion there was no object present which
could be missed. Anxiety was still the only reaction which
took place. Subsequent there-
to, repeated situat-
ions in
which gratificaton was experi-
enced have created out of
the mother the object who is the recipi-
ent, when a need
arises, of an intense cathexis, a cathexis which we may
call “longingful.” It is to this innovation that the reac-
tion of grief is referable. Grief is therefore the reaction
specific to object loss, anxiety to the danger which this
object loss entails, or, by a further displacement, to the
danger of object loss itself.

Of pain, likewise, we know very little. Its only certain
meaning derives from the fact that pain—primar-
ily and
as a rule—occurs if a stimulus impinging on the periph-
ery breaks through the defens-
es that oppose stimuli
of
excessive strength and hence acts like a contin-
uous in-
stinc-
tual stimulus against which otherwise efficac-
ious
muscular activity such as serves to remove the stimulated
region from the stimulus remains powerless. If the pain

120

does not originate from a point on the skin but from an
internal organ, this does not alter the situation in any
way; it is only that a bit of the internal periphery has
replaced the external. The child has obviously occasion
to experience pain of this kind which is independent of
his experiencing of needs. This mode of origin of pain
seems to have very little in common with the loss of an
object, however, and further, the factor of peripheral
stimulation, essential in the case of pain, is entirely
lacking in the child’s situation of longing. And it cer-
tainly cannot be without significance that language has
created the concept of inward, of psychic, pain, and has
equated the sensations attendant upon object loss with
physical pain.¹⁾

In the case of physical pain there arises an intense
cathexis, which may be termed narcissistic, of the painful
region of the body—a cathexis which increases progres-
sively and which acts upon the ego in a so to speak evacua-
tive manner. It is a familiar fact that when we feel pain
in the internal organs we experience spatial and other
impressions of these organs which otherwise would not
be registered in consciousness at all. Furthermore, the
remarkable fact that the most intense physical pain fails
of its full effect (here one may not say, “remains uncon-
scious”) when we are distracted by some different interest
is to be explained on the ground of the concentration of
the cathexis upon the psychic representative of the pain-
ful body area. Now it is in this point that the analogy
seems to consist which has allowed the transference of the
sensation of pain to the mental sphere. The intense and,

¹⁾That is, by using the same word (Schmerz) for both.—TRANSLATOR’S
NOTE.

121

ADDENDA

owing to its unappeasability, ever-increasing longingful
cathexis of the missed (lost) object creates the same eco-
nomic conditions as the painful cathexis of the injured
body area, and makes it possible to disregard the periph-
eral determination of the physical pain. The transition
from physical pain to psychic corresponds to the change
from narcissistic to object-cathexis. The idea of the ob-
ject, highly cathected out of need, plays the rôle of the
body area cathected by increased stimulation. The con-
tinuous and uninhibitable character of the cathectic
process brings about the same state of psychic helpless-
ness. If the unpleasurable sensation which then arises
bears the specific stamp, not necessitating more exact de-
scription, of pain, instead of being expressed in the form
of anxiety, the obvious thing is to hold responsible for
this a factor which has heretofore been made far too little
use of in our efforts at explanation—namely, the high
level of cathexis and libido-binding at which these proc-
esses resulting in sensations of unpleasure take place.

We know of still another emotional reaction to object
loss—namely, mourning. Its elucidation, however, does
not involve any additional difficulties. Mourning origi-
nates under the influence of reality testing, which de-
mands categorically that one must part from the object
because the object no longer exists. Now it is the task of
mourning to carry out this retreat from the object in all
the situations in which the object was the recipient of an
intense cathexis. The painful character of this separation
accords with the explanation just given—that is, it is ex-
plained by the intense and unrealizable longingful
cathexis of the object during the reproduction of the situ-
ations in which the tie to the object has to be dissolved.