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The general inhibitions of the ego follow another and simple
mechanism. When the ego is claimed by a psychic task of particu-
lar difficulty,–through an affliction, a grand affect-suppression,
through the necessity of holding down a constantly increasing sexual
fancy,–it is so deprived of disposable energy that it must retrench
its supply in many directions like a speculator who has tied up his
money in his enterprises. An instructive example of such an in-
tensive general inhibition of brief duration was observed by me in
a compulsive patient who fell into a paralyzing weariness of one or
several days’ duration on occasions which should obviously have led
to an outbreak of rage. Beginning here there must be found a way
to the comprehension of general inhibition through which the de-
pressive states and the most severe of these, melancholy, characterize
themselves.

In conclusion, one may say of the inhibitions that they are re-
strictions of the ego functions either from prudence or impoverish-
ment of energy. It is easy to recognize now wherein inhibition
differs from symptom; for symptom can be nothing more than a
process within or connected with the ego.

II

The main features of symptom formation have long been studied
and have been expressed, it is to be hoped, in an impregnable manner.
The symptom is a sign and substitute of a suppressed impulse-grati-
fication, the result of a repressive process. The repression proceeds
from the ego, which, perchance in the service of the super-ego, will
not coöperate in an instinct investment incited by the It. The ego
through the repression makes it possible for the idea, which was
the carrier of the unamiable striving, to become shut off from
consciousness. Analysis often demonstrates that it remains as an
unconscious formation. Thus far it is clear, but presently the un-
solved difficulties begin.

Our previous descriptions of the process in repression have em-
phasized the result of the shutting off from consciousness, but in
other respects we have left matters open to doubt. The question
arises, what is the fate of the impulse activated in the It which aims
at gratification? The answer is an indirect one and runs as follows:
through the process of repression the anticipated desire for gratifica-
tion is changed to pain. One would then confront the problem of
how pain could be the result of the instinct gratification. We hope
to explain the situation by the definite statement that the intentional
course of the stimulus in the It fails to take place because of repres-
 

467

sion, while the ego succeeds in inhibiting or diverting the same. Then
the riddle unfolds of affect-transformation by repression. We have,
however, confessed to the ego that it can express so far reaching an
influence on the processes in the It and we should learn to understand
in what way this astounding unfolding of power becomes possible.

I believe that this influence belongs to the ego as a result of its
intimate associations with the perceptive system, which indeed consti-
tutes its very nature and is the basis of its differentiation from the
It. The function of this system, which we have called the perceptive-
conscious, is bound up with the phenomenon of consciousness; it
receives excitations not only from without but also from within
and by means of pleasure-pain sensations which it attains there-
from it attempts to direct all of the courses of the psychic happen-
ings in accordance with the pleasure principle. We imagine the ego
as good as powerless against the It, but when it strives against an
instinctive process in the It, it needs only to give the signal of
pain in order to attain its objective through the almost omnipo-
tent factor of the pleasure principle. When we contemplate this
situation by itself for the moment we may illustrate it by an example
from another sphere of activity. A certain clique resists a measure
which meets with the inclinations of the mass of the people. This
minority then usurps the press, manipulates through it the sovereign
“public opinion” and pushes matters in such a way that the planned
measure does not go through.

Other questions now arise. Where does the energy originate
which brings about the pain signal? Here an idea shows us the way
the defence of an unwished for process within may follow the pattern
of a defence against an external irritant, where the ego takes the same
path against internal as it does against external danger. If the
danger is from without, the organized being takes flight and then
first of all withdraws from the perception of danger; later it is
recognized that a more efficacious means is to effectuate such mus-
cular actions that the perception of danger becomes impossible, even
when it is not denied; in other words, to withdraw from the region
of danger. One such effort at flight is equivalent to repression.

The ego withdraws the (preconscious) investment from the instinct
representation to be repressed and applies it for the disengagement
of displeasure (anxiety). The problem of how anxiety arises from
repression may be no simple one and in any case one has the right
to hold fast to the idea that the ego is the chief place of anxiety and
to reject the earlier notion that the investment energy of fixation of
the repressed incitation becomes automatically changed to anxiety.

468

If I formerly so expressed myself I was giving it a phenomenological
and not a metapsychological presentation.

From what has been said a new question comes up. How is it
economically possible that a mere withdrawal and conducting off–
as in the retreat of a preconscious ego-investment–could engender
disinclination or fear, which according to our presuppositions can
result only from enhanced investment? My reply is that this causa-
tion is not to be explained economically. Anxiety is not newly engen-
dered in repression but is reproduced as an affective state after a
present memory picture. With a further inquiry as to the origin of
this anxiety–as of affects in general–we abandon the undisputed
psychological territory and enter the borderland of physiology.
Affective states are incorporated into the soul life as precipitates of
archaic traumatic experiences and are awakened in like situations as
memory symbols. I mean that I am not in error in making them
equivalent to the late and isolated hysterical attacks, and to be regarded
as their normal prototypes. In mankind and the creatures related to
him the act of parturition appears to be the first individual anxiety
experienced to give the characteristic traits of the expression of an
anxiety affect. We are not, however, to overestimate this connection
and in its recognition are not to overlook the fact that an affect
symbol is a biological necessity for a situation of peril and at all
events must be obtained. I also hold that it is unjustified to assume
that in every outbreak of anxiety something occurs in the soul life
which reproduces the birth situation. It is not at all certain
whether the hysterical attacks which are originally such traumatic
reproductions maintain this character permanently.

Elsewhere I have deduced that most repressions with which we
have to do therapeutically are cases of after-repression, which pre-
suppose the existence of archaic repressions exerting their attractive
influence on a newer situation. Of this background and forestage
of repression too little is known. One comes easily into the danger
of overestimating the rôle of the super-ego in repression.

At present we are unable to judge whether the appearance of the
super-ego creates the border between primeval repression and late
repression. The first–very intensive–outbursts of anxiety do at any
rate follow upon the differentiation of the super-ego. It is plausible
throughout that quantitative factors, such as the excessive strength
of the excitation and the breach in the stimulus protection, are the
first occasions of the primary repression.

Mention of protection from excitation reminds us like a catchword
that repressions appear in two different situations–first, when an
unpleasant instinctive stimulus is awakened by an external percep-
 

469

tion, and second, when the latter occurs from internal provocation.
We will return later to this difference. Stimulus protection is afforded
only against external irritation, not from internal instinctive demands.
As long as we study the attempt at flight of the ego we remain far
from symptom formation. The symptom arises from the instinct
stimulus which is encroached on by the repression. When the ego
attains its objective, through the pain signal, of keeping under the
instinct stimulus, we learn nothing as to how this is brought about.
We only learn from cases which are to be termed more or less
unsuccessful repressions.

In general, then, it is so presented that despite the repression the
instinct stimulus has found a substitute, but this is strongly blighted,
displaced and inhibited. It is no longer recognizable as a satisfaction.
When it consummated, no feeling of pleasure accompanies it. For
this reason the consummation has assumed the character of a com-
pulsion. But in this lowering of the course of satisfaction to the
symptom, the repression shows its power in another respect. The
substitution process is withheld from removal by the motor actions and
even when this is unsuccessful it must exhaust itself in the alteration
of its own body and cannot encroach on the outer world; it is for-
bidden it to transform itself into activity. We understand that in
suppression the ego works under the influence of external reality
and on that account shuts off the result of the process of substitut-
tion from this reality.

The ego dominates the access to consciousness as also the transi-
tion to action against the external world; in repression its power
is employed in both directions. The instinct object is adapted to
sense one side, and the impulse prompting to the other side of its
expression of force. It is now permissible to ask how this recogni-
tion of the power of the ego coincides with the description outlined of
the position of the same ego in my study “The Ego and the It.” We
have therein depicted the dependence of the ego on the It and the
super-ego and unmasked its weakness and readiness to anxiety toward
both and its superiority, which has been built up laboriously. This
judgment has since found a strong echo in psychoanalytic literature.
Numerous voices emphasize urgently the weakness of the ego against
the It, of the rational against the demoniacal in us, and are ready to
make this proposition into a foundation for a psychoanalytic view of
the universe. Should not the insight into the mode of action of
repression be the very thing to hold the analyst back from so
extreme a partisan designation?

I am not at all for the fabrication of world contemplations. One
may leave such to philosophers who by their own confession cannot

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make life’s journey practicable without such a Baedeker, which gives
information about all things. Let us humbly take upon ourselves
the contumely with which the philosophers look down upon us from
the standpoint of their indigence. Since we, too, cannot deny our
narcisstic pride, we will seek our comfort in the venture that all of
these life pilots soon age, that it is just our shortsighted restricted
work in miniature which makes necessary their new editions, and
that even the most modern of these Baedekers are essays to replace
old catechism, so convenient and complete. We know exactly how
little light science has hitherto diffused over the riddle of this world;
all the noise of the philosophers can change nothing, only a patient
continuation of the work which subordinates everything to one de-
mand for certainty, can effect slowly the transformation. If the
wanderer sings in the dark, he denies his anxiety but this does not
make him see more clearly.

III

To return to the problem of the ego: the appearance of contra-
diction is due to the fact that we take abstractions too rigidly and out
of a complicated state of affairs look at first one, then another side
alone. The separation of the ego from the It seems justified. It is
forced on us by definite conditions. But on the other hand, the ego
and It are identical, the ego is only a differentiated part of the same
It. If in thought we place this fragment against the whole, or if there
is a true dissension between the two, the weakness of this ego is
manifest. But if the ego remains bound to the It and cannot be
divided from it, its strength is manifest. The relation between the
ego and super-ego is similar; in many situations the two flow to-
gether; mostly we can only distinguish between them when there is
tension, a conflict, between them. For the case of repression this
fact will be decisive, that the ego is an organization, the It is not.
The ego is the organized part of the It. It would be quite unjustified
if one should imagine that the ego and It are two unlike camps of
warriors; in repression the ego seeks to repress a fragment of the It,
but the remainder of the It comes to the rescue and measures its
strength with that of the ego. This may often happen although it
is certainly not the initial situation of repression; as a rule the
instinct to be repressed is isolated. If the act of repression has
shown us the strength of the ego, it bears witness of its weak-
ness and for the fact that the individual instincts of the It cannot
be influenced. For the process which has become a symptom through
repression maintains its existence outside of the ego organization