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INHIBITION, SYMPTOM AND ANXIETY

VII

Let us return to the infantile zoöphobias, for we understand them
better than all of the others. Here the ego must intercede against a
libidinous object investment of the It (that of the positive or negative
Oedipus complex) because it has understood that to yield brings
with it the danger of castration. This we have already discussed
and still find occasion to clear up a doubt which remains from
the first discussion. Are we to assume with little Hans (hence in the
case of a positive Oedipus complex), that it is the tender emotion
toward the mother, or the aggressive one against the father which
produces the defense of the ego? Practically this seems indifferent,
especially as the two promptings condition each other, but a theoretic
interest associates itself in the question because only a tender current
toward the mother can count as purely erotic. The aggressive is
essentially dependent on the destructive impulse and we have always
believed that in the neurosis the ego defends itself against the claims
of the libido, not of the other impulses. We see in fact that in the
formation of the phobia the tender mother association has vanished
and is radically removed through repression, while the symptom
(substitute) formation has completed itself with the aggressive
prompting. In the case of the wolf man the matter is more simple,
the repressed prompting is actually an erotic one, the feminine
situation to the father, and with this completes itself in the symptom
formation.

It is to be deplored that after so much work we find still further
difficulties in the comprehension of the fundamental relations, but
we have undertaken to simplify nothing and to conceal nothing. If
we could not see clearly we would at least see keenly the obscurities.
That which stands in our way here is evidently a lack of symmetry
in the development of our knowledge of the impulses. First, we had
the organization of the libido from the oral past, the sadistic-anal to
the genital, and hereby ranked these components of the sex impulse
equally. Later it appears to us that sadism is the representative of
another, the impulse opposite to Eros. The new comprehension of
the two groups of impulses seems to rupture the former construction
of the successive phases of libido organization, but we do not need
to discover anew the helpful information from these difficulties, for
these have long been tendered us and mean that we hardly ever have
to do with pure impulses but always with the alloys of both impulses
in varying proportions. The sadistic object investment also has a
claim to be treated as libidinous; the organization of the libido
does not need to be revised, the aggressive prompting against the
father can with the same claim be the object of repression as the

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tender one for the mother. In any case we place the material for later
discussion of this possibility to one side, for repression is a pro-
cess which has a particular relation to the genital organization of the
libido. The ego grasps after other modes of defense when it must
defend itself against the libido at other stages of organization, and
we proceed. A case like that of little Hans permits us no decision;
here an aggressive prompting is removed by repression but only
after the genital organization has already been reached.

This time we will not allow the relation to fear to escape our atten-
tion. We said that as the ego recognizes the danger of castration
it gives the fear signal and by means of the pleasure-pain principle in-
hibits in a manner not understood the threatening investment process
in the It. Simultaneously the phobia formation is completed. The
castration fear receives another object and a disguised expression
(bitten by a horse, devoured by a wolf in place of being castrated
by the father). The substitute formation has two manifest ad-
vantages, first, that it evades an ambivalent conflict, for the father is
at the same time an object of love; and second, that it permits the ego
to stop the development of fear. The fear in the phobia is espe-
cially a facultative one and appears only when its object is the subject
of perception. This is entirely feasible, for only then is the fear
situation at hand. From an absent father one need not fear even
castration. Now when one cannot get the father out of the way the
fear always shows itself and when it will. If the father is replaced
by an animal, he needs only a glimpse, can keep out of the animal’s
way and thus be free from danger and fear. Little Hans contracted
his ego and produced an inhibition; he would not go out in order not
to see horses. The little Russian had it still more convenient. It
was hardly any self denial for him to avoid taking up a certain pic-
ture-book. If his bad sister did not hold up before him this image
of the wolf he could feel secure from this fear.

I have formerly ascribed to fear the character of a projection, as
I replaced an internal prompting of danger by an external perceptive
danger. This brings the advantage that man can protect himself
against external danger by flight and by avoidance of the perception,
while flight cannot protect from an internal danger. My observation
was not faulty but it remains superficial. The impulse is not a
danger in itself but only because it brings with it a true external
danger, that of castration. So at the basis of a phobia one external
danger is replaced by another. That the ego in a phobia can with-
draw the fear by flight or inhibition agrees very well with the notion
that fear is an affect signal only and that the economic situation is
not really changed.

491

The fear in a zoöphobia is also an affective reaction of the ego to
danger; the danger which is signalled being that of castration. There
is no other difference from ordinary fear which the ego expresses
in danger situations save that the content remains unknown and is
made conscious only by disguising it.

The same comprehension will, I believe, hold good for the fears
of adults even if the material which the neurosis elaborates is much
more abundant and there are additional factors in symptom forma-
tion. At bottom it is the same thing. The agoraphobe lays a limita-
tion on his ego in order to escape a danger from impulse. The
danger lies in the temptation to yield to his erotic desires, as a result
of which he again as in childhood, conjures up the fear of castration
or something analogous. As an example I cite the case of a young
man who became an agoraphobe because he feared he would yield
to the attractions of prostitutes and catch syphilis as a punishment.

I well know that many cases show a complicated structure and
that many others can empty repressed promptings into a phobia,
but these are only auxiliary and have for the most part set them-
selves at a later period in association with the nucleus of the neurosis.

The symptoms of agoraphobia become complicated thereby, so that
the ego does not content itself with renouncing something; instead
it adds something to deprive the situation of danger. This addendum
is usually a regression into child years (in extreme cases into the
uterus, into the time in which it was protected from the dangers
which now menace it) and appears as a condition under which
renunciation can be omitted. Hence the agoraphobe can walk the
streets when, like a little child, he is accompanied by some one in
whom he confides. The same regard may also permit him to go
out alone when he does not exceed a certain distance from his home
and does not go into neighborhoods which are unfamiliar to him
and where he is unknown to people. In the choice of these deter-
minants he shows the influence of infantile factors which dominate
him through his neurosis. Quite unequivocal but without the ele-
ment of infantile regression is the fear of being alone, which is
founded on the fear that one will yield to the temptation of solitary
onanism. The condition of infantile regression is naturally the
chronological removal from childhood.

The phobia as a rule originates when under certain circumstances
–on the street, on the railway, when alone–a first attack of fear
is experienced. Fear is then banished but invariably asserts itself
when conditions of protection cannot be controlled. The mechanism
of the phobia does good service as a means of defense and shows
a great inclination to stability. A continuation of the defensive

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fight, which is now directed against the symptom, often but not
necessarily enters.

What we have learned about fears in connection with phobias
remains of utility in the compulsive neuroses. It is not difficult to
reduce the situation of the compulsive neurosis to that of a phobia.
The motif of all later symptom formation is evidently the fear of
the ego of its super-ego. The hostility of the super-ego is the
danger situation from which the ego must withdraw itself. Here
there is no sign of a projection, the danger is throughout interiorized.
But if we ask ourselves what the ego fears from its super-ego, the
notion is forced upon us that the punishment of the latter is a con-
tinuation of the castration punishment. As the super-ego is really
the father who has been depersonalized, so the fear of the threat-
ened castration by the father becomes transformed into indefinite
social fears, of fear of conscience. But this fear is hidden, the ego
withdraws itself from it while at the same time it carries out the
commands, precautions and expiations laid upon it. When it is pre-
vented there develops an extremely penible discomfort which to
the patient is the equivalent of fear. Hence our result runs as fol-
lows: Fear is a reaction to the danger situation and is spared if the
ego does something to avoid the situation or withdraw from it. One
might say that the symptoms are created in order to avoid danger-
ous situations which are signalized by fear development. This
danger in the cases hitherto discussed was the danger of castration
or of something derived from it.

If fear is the reaction of the ego to danger, we come nearer to
comprehending the traumatic neurosis which so often follows an
experience with danger to life as a direct consequence of life-fear
or death-fear with setting aside of the dependencies of the ego and
of castration. This has happened in connection with most of the
observers of traumatic neuroses during the last war, and it was tri-
umphantly announced that now we have proofs that imperilling
the impulse to self-preservation can cause a neurosis without any
participation of sexuality and without regard to the complicated
assumptions of psycho-analysis. It is, in fact, extremely unfortunate
that there is not a single utilizable example of an analysis of a trau-
matic neurosis. Not because of the contradiction of the etiological
significance of sexuality–for this has long ago been abolished by
the introduction of narcism which brings the libidinous fixation of
the ego in a series with the object investments and emphasizes the
libidinous nature of self-preservation–but because through the
absence of these analyses we have neglected a most valuable oppor-
tunity to draw decisive conclusions over the relation between fear

493

and symptom formation. From all that we know of the structure
of the simpler neuroses of daily life it is highly improbable that a
neurosis can occur only through the objective fact of peril without
participation of the deeper unconscious strata of the psychic
apparatus. In the unconscious, moreover, there is nothing at hand
which can give content to our conception of the destruction of life.
Castration can be visualized through the daily experience of parting
with the intestinal contents and through the loss of the maternal
breast through weaning; but anything like death has never been
experienced, or if so, like a swoon, has left no trace behind which
could be demonstrated. Therefore I hold fast to the supposition
that death-fear is to be comprehended as an analogue of castration
fear and that the situation upon which the ego reacts is the abandon-
ment by the protecting super-ego–the power of fate–whereby the
assurance against all danger has an end. Besides, there comes into
consideration that in the experiences which lead to traumatic neurosis
external protection from irritation is broken through and over-large
quantities of excitation appear in the psychic apparatus; so that the
second possibility is present that not only does fear fail to signalize
the affect but the situation is newly generated from the economic
conditions.

Through the last remark that the ego through its regularly repeated
loss of objects is prepared for castration, we have obtained a new
conception of fear. Having regarded it hitherto as the affect signal
of danger, it now appears to us often in connection with castration
danger as the reaction to a loss, a separation. While many
things may speak against this conclusion, as is at once apparent, a
very noteworthy agreement must strike us. The first fear experience
of mankind is birth, and this signifies objectively separation from
the mother, which may be likened to castration of the mother (accord-
ing to the equation child equals penis). Now it would be very
gratifying if fear should be repeated at every subsequent separation
as a symbol of separation; but unfortunately another valuation of
this agreement stands in the way, for subjectively birth is not experi-
enced as a separation from the mother, for to the narcistic fetus the
mother is quite unknown as a separate object. Another consideration
will be that the affect reaction to a separation is known and that we
feel pain and grief but not anxiety or fear. Indeed, we recall that
we have not understood why grief should be so painful.

VIII

It is time to reflect. We seek obviously for insight into the nature
of fear, for an “either–or” which will separate truth from error.