THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

VOLUME XVIII OCTOBER 1937 PART 4

ORIGINAL PAPERS

ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE
BY
SIGM. FREUD
I
Experience has taught us that psycho-analytic therapy—the liberation
of a human being from his neurotic symptoms, inhibitions and abnorm-
alities of character—is a lengthy business. . Hence, from the very
beginning, attempts have been made to shorten the course of analysis.
Such endeavours required no justification: they could claim to be
prompted by the strongest considerations alike of reason and expedi-
ency. But it may be that there lurked in them some trace of the
impatient contempt with which the medical profession of an earlier
day regarded the neuroses, seeing in them the unnecessary results of
invisible lesions. If you were obliged to deal with them, you simply
aimed at getting rid of them with the utmost despatch. Basing his
procedure on the theory formulated in Das Trauma der Geburt (1924)
Otto Rank made a particularly determined attempt to shorten analysis.
He assumed that the cardinal source of neurosis was the experience of
birth, on the ground of the possibility that the infant's * primal fixation '
to the mother might not be surmounted but persist in the form of
` primal repression '. His hope was that, if this primal trauma were
overcome by analysis, the whole neurosis would clear up, so that this
one small piece of analytic work, for which a few months should
suffice, would do away with the necessity for all the rest. Rank's
argument was certainly bold and ingenious but it did not stand the
test of critical examination. Moreover, it was a premature attempt,
conceived under the stress of the contrast between the post-War
misery of Europe and the ` prosperity ' of America, and designed to
accelerate the tempo of analytic therapy to suit the rush of American
life. We have heard little of the clinical results of Rank’s plan. Prob-
373 25

374 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

ably it has not accomplished more than would be done if the men of
a fire-brigade, summoned to deal with a fire from an upset oil-lamp,
merely removed the lamp from the room in which the conflagration
had broken out. Much less time would certainly be spent in so doing
than in extinguishing the whole fire. The theory and practice of
Rank’s experiment are now things of the past—as is American
* prosperity '.

Before the War, I myself had already tried another way of speeding
up analysis. I had undertaken to treat a young Russian, a rich man
spoilt by riches, who had come to Vienna in a state of complete helpless-
ness, accompanied by physician and attendant.! It was possible in
the course of several years to restore to him a considerable measure
of independence, and to awaken his interest in life, while his relations
to the principal people in his life were adjusted. But then we came
to a full stop. We made no progress in clearing up his childhood's
neurosis, which was the basis of his later illness, and it was obvious that
the patient found his present situation quite comfortable and did not
intend to take any step which would bring him nearer to the end of
his treatment. It was a case of the patient himself obstructing the
cure : the analysis was in danger of failing as a result of its— partial
success. In this predicament I resorted to the heroic remedy of fixing
a date for the conclusion of the analysis. At the beginning of a period
of treatment I told the patient that the coming year was to be the
last of his analysis, no matter what progress he made or failed to make
in the time still left to him. At first he did not believe me, but, once
he was convinced that I was in dead earnest, the change which I had
hoped for began to take place. His resistances crumbled away, and
in the Jast months of treatment he was able to produce all the memories
and to discover the connecting links which were necessary for the
understanding of his early neurosis and his recovery from the illness
from which he was then suffering. When he took leave of me at mid-
summer, 1014, unsuspecting, as we all were, of what was so shortly
to happen, I believed that his cure was complete and permanent.

In a postscript to this patient's case-history (1923) I have already
reported that I was mistaken. When, towards the end of the War, he
returned to Vienna, a refugee and destitute, I had to help him to

1 Cf. the paper, published with the patient's consent, ‘ The History of
an Infantile Neurosis” (1918). It contains no detailed account of the
young man's subsequent illness, which is touched on only when its con-
nection with his infantile neurosis requires it.

SIGM. FREUD 375

master a part of the transference which had remained unresolved.
Within a few months this was successfully accomplished and I was
able to conclude my postscript with the statement that ` since then
the patient has felt normal and has behaved unexceptionably, in spite
of the War having robbed him of his home, his possessions and all his
family relationships’. Fifteen years have passed since then, but this
verdict has not proved erroneous, though certain reservations have
had to be made. The patient has remained in Vienna and has made
good, although in a humble social position. Several times, however,
during this period, his satisfactory state of health has broken down,
and the attacks of neurotic illness from which he has suffered could
be construed only as offshoots of his original neurosis. Thanks to
the skill of one of my pupils, Dr. Ruth Mack Brunswick, a short
course of treatment has sufficed on each occasion to clear up these
attacks. I hope Dr. Mack Brunswick herself will report on this case
before long. Some of these relapses were caused by still unresolved
residues of the transference; short-lived though the attacks were,
they were distinctly paranoid in character. In other instances,
however, the pathogenic material consisted of fragments from the
history of the patient’s childhood, which had not come to light while
I was analysing him and which now came away (the comparison is
obvious) like sutures after an operation or small pieces of necrotic
bone. I have found the history of this man’s recovery" almost as
interesting as that of his illness.

Since then I have employed the method of fixing a date for the
termination of analysis in other cases and I have also inquired about
the experience of other analysts in this respect. There can be only
one verdict about the value of this device for putting pressure on the
patient. The measure is effective, provided that one hits the right
time at which to employ it. But it cannot be held to guarantee perfect
accomplishment of the task of psycho-analysis. On the contrary,
we may be quite sure that, while the impending termination of the
treatment will have the effect of bringing part of the material to
light, another part will be walled up, as if buried, behind it and will
elude our therapeutic efforts. Once the date for discontinuing the
treatment has been fixed we must not extend the time; otherwise
the patient will lose all his faith in the analyst. The most obvious
expedient is to let him continue his treatment with another analyst,
although we know that a change of this sort involves a fresh loss of
time and the sacrifice of some of the results of the work already done.

376 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

No general rule can be laid down as to the right time for resorting to
this forcible technical method : the analyst must use his own tact
in the matter. A mistake, once made, cannot be rectified. The saying
that the lion springs once and once only must hold good here.

1

The discussion of the technical problem of how to accelerate the
slow progress of analysis suggests another deeply interesting question :
is there such a thing as a natural end to an analysis or is it really
possible to conduct it to such an end? To judge by the ordinary
talk of analysts we should presume that it is, for we often hear them
say, when deploring or excusing the admitted imperfection of some
fellow-mortal : “His analysis was not finished’ or ‘He was not
thoroughly analysed '.

Now we must first decide what is meant by the ambiguous term,
“the end of an analysis’. From the practical standpoint it is easily
defined. An analysis is ended when analyst and patient cease to
meet for the analytic session. This happens when two conditions
have been approximately fulfilled. First, the patient must no longer
be suffering from his former symptoms and must have overcome his
various anxieties and inhibitions and, secondly, the analyst must have
formed the opinion that so much repressed material has been brought
into consciousness, so much that was inexplicable elucidated, and so
much inner resistance overcome that no repetition of the patient`s
specific pathological processes is to be feared. If for external reasons
one is prevented from reaching this goal, it is more correct to say
that an analysis is incomplete than to say that it has not come to an
end.

The second definition of the “ епа ' of an analysis is much more
ambitious. According to it we have to answer the question whether
the effect upon the patient is so profound that we can be certain that
no further change would take place in him if his analysis were con-
tinued. The implication is that by means of analysis it is possible
to attain to absolute psychic normality and to be sure that it will be
maintained, the supposition being that all the patient's repressions
have been lifted and every gap in his memory filled. Let us first
consult our experience and see whether this really happens and then
examine our theory and learn whether there is any possibility of its
happening.

Every analyst will have treated some cases with this gratifying

SIGM. FREUD 377

result. He has succeeded in clearing up the patient’s neurosis, there
has been no relapse and no other nervous disturbance has succeeded it.
We know something of what determines these results. No noticeable
change had taken place in the patients’ ego and the causation of their
illness was pre-eminently traumatic. The ætiology of all neurosis is
indeed a mixed one; either the patient’s instincts are excessively
strong and refuse to submit to the restraining influence of his ego or
else he is suffering from the effects of premature traumas, by which
I mean traumas which his immature ego was unable to surmount.
Generally there is a combination of the two factors : the constitutional
and the accidental. The stronger the instincts the more readily will
a trauma lead to fixation, with its sequel in a disturbance of develop-
ment ; the more violent the trauma the more certain is it that it will
have injurious effects even when the patient’s instincts are of normal
strength. There can be no doubt that, when the ætiology of the
neurosis is traumatic, analysis has a far better chance. Only when
the traumatic factor predominates can we look for that most masterly
achievement of psycho-analysis, namely, such a reinforcement of the
ego that a correct adjustment takes the place of that infantile solution
of the patient's early conflicts which proved so inadequate. Only in
such a case can one speak of a definitive end to his analysis. When
such a result has been attained analysis has done all that can be required
of it and need not be continued. If the patient who has made such a
good recovery never produces any more symptoms calling for analysis,
it still, of course, remains an open question how much of this immunity
is due to a benevolent fate which spares him too searching a test.

The factors which are prejudicial to analysis and may cause it
to be so long-drawn-out as to be really interminable are a constitutional
strength of instinct and an unfavourable change sustained by the ego
in the defensive conflict, a change comparable to a dislocation or
crippling. One is tempted to make the first factor—the strength of
the instincts—responsible for the second—the change in the ego—
but it is clear that the latter has its own ætiology and indeed it must
be admitted that our knowledge of these relations is as yet imperfect.
They are only just becoming the object of analytic investigation. I
think that here the analyst’s interest tends to be quite wrongly
orientated. Instead of inquiring how analysis effects a cure (a point
which in my opinion has been sufficiently elucidated) we should ask
what are the obstacles which this cure encounters.

This brings me to two problems which arise directly out of psycho-

378 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

analytic practice, as I hope to show by the following examples. A
certain man, who had himself been a most successful practitioner of
analysis, came to the conclusion that his relations with men as well as
with women—the men who were his rivals and the woman whom he
loved—were not free from neurotic inhibitions, and he therefore had
himself analysed by an analyst whom he believed to be more expert
than himself. This critical exploration of his own personality was
entirely successful. He married the woman whom he loved and
became the friend and teacher of the men whom he had regarded as
rivals. Many years passed, during which his relation to his former
analyst remained unclouded. But then, for no demonstrable external
reason, trouble arose. The man who had been analysed adopted an
antagonistic attitude to his analyst and reproached him for having
neglected to complete the analysis. The analyst, he said, ought to
have known and to have taken account of the fact that a transference-
relation could never be merely positive ; he ought to have considered
the possibilities of a negative transference. The analyst justified
himself by saying that, at the time of the analysis, there was no sign
of a negative transference. But, even supposing that he had failed to
observe some slight indication of it, which was quite possible consider-
ing the limitations of analysis in those early days, it was still doubtful
whether he would have been able to activate a psychic theme or, as
we say, a ‘ complex ', by merely indicating it to the patient, so long
as it was not at that moment an actuality to him. Such activation
would certainly have necessitated real unfriendly behaviour on the
analyst's part. And, besides, every happy relation between analyst
and analysand, during and after analysis, was not to be regarded as
transference. There were friendly relations with a real basis, which
were perfectly compatible with normal life.

I now pass on to my second example, which raises the same problem.
A girl who had left her childhood behind her had, since puberty,
been cut off from life by an inability to walk, owing to acute pain
in her legs. Her condition was obviously hysterical in character
and it had resisted various kinds of treatment. After an analysis
lasting nine months the trouble disappeared and the patient, whose
character was truly sound and estimable, was able once more to
take her place in life. In the years following her recovery she was
consistently unfortunate: there were disasters in her family, they
lost their money and, as she grew older, she saw every hope of happiness
in love and marriage vanish. But this woman, who had formerly

SIGM. FREUD 379

been an invalid, stood her ground valiantly and in difficult times was
a support to her pcople. I cannot remember whether it was twelve
or fourteen years after the end of her analysis that she had to undergo
a gynæcological examination on account of profuse haemorrhages.
A myoma was discovered which made it advisable for complete
hysterectomy to be performed. From the time that this operation
took place she relapsed into neurosis. She fell in love with the surgeon
and was overwhelmed by masochistic phantasies of the dreadful
internal changes which had taken place in her—phantasies in which
she disguised her romance. She proved inaccessible to a further
attempt at analysis, and to the end of her life she remained abnormal.
The successful analytic treatment took place so long ago that we
could not expect too much from it ; it was in the first years of my
work as an analyst. It is, however, possible that the patient's second
neurosis sprang from the same root as the first, which had been success-
fully overcome, and that it was a different manifestation of repressed
tendencies which analysis had only partially resolved. But I am
inclined to think that, but for the fresh trauma, there would have
been no second outbreak of neurosis.

These two cases, purposely selected from a large number of similar
ones, will suffice to set going a discussion of the problems we are
considering. The sceptical, the optimistic and the ambitious will
draw very different conclusions from them. Sceptics will say that
they prove that even a successful analysis does not prevent the patient
who is cured for the time being from subsequently developing another
neurosis, or even a neurosis springing from the same instinctual root,
that is to say, from a recurrence of his former trouble. The others
will maintain that this is not proved. They will object that both
the cases I have cited date from the early days of analysis, twenty or
thirty years ago. Since then we have acquired deeper insight and
wider knowledge and, in adapting our technique to our new discoveries,
we have modified it in many respects. To-day we may demand and
expect that an analytic cure shall be permanent or, at least, that, if
a patient falls ill again, his fresh neurosis shall not turn out to be a
revival of his earlier instinctual disturbance, manifesting itself in a
new guise. Our experience, they say, is not such that we must limit
so strictly the demands which we may legitimately make upon psycho-
analytic therapy.

Now of course my reason for selecting these particular cases as
illustrations was precisely that they date so far back. It is obvious

380 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

that the more recent the result of an analysis the less valuable is it
for our theoretical discussion since we have no means of predicting
what will happen later to a patient who has been cured. Clearly
the expectations of the optimist presuppose a number of things which
are not exactly a matter of course. In the first place he assumes
that it is really possible to resolve an instinctual conflict (or, more
accurately, a conflict between the ego and an instinct) finally and for
all time. Secondly, that when we are dealing with one such conflict
in a patient, we can, as it were, inoculate him against the possibility
of any other instinctual conflicts in the future. And thirdly, that we
have the power, for purposes of prophylaxis, to stir up a pathogenic
conflict of this sort, when at the moment there is no indication of it,
and that it is wise to do so. I merely suggest these questions: I do
not propose to answer them here. In any case a definite answer is
perhaps not possible at the present time.

Probably some light may be thrown on the subject from the
theoretical standpoint. But already another point has become clear :
if we wish to fulfil the more exacting demands which are now made
upon therapeutic analysis, we shall not regard the shortening of its
duration as either a means or an end.

III

My analytic experience, extending now over several decades, and
the change which has taken place in the nature and mode of my work
encourage me to attempt an answer to the questions before us. In
earlier days I dealt with a larger number of patients, who, as was
natural, wanted to be cured as quickly as possible. Of late years I
have been mainly engaged in training-analyses and I have also had
a relatively small number of patients suffering from acute neuroses,
whose treatment is carried on with longer or shorter intermissions.
In these cases the therapeutic aim is no longer the same as before.
There is no question of shortening the treatment: the object has
been completely to exhaust the possibilities of illness and to bring
about a radical change in the personality.

Of the three factors which, as we have seen, determine the results
of analysis—the effect of traumas, the constitutional strength of the
instincts and the changes in the ego—we are at this point concerned
with the second only: the strength of the instincts. Reflection
immediately suggests a doubt as to whether it is necessary to use the
qualifying adjective constitutional (or ‘ congenital’). It is true

SIGM. FREUD 381

that from the very beginning the constitutional factor is of crucial
importance, but it is yet conceivable that the same effects might
ensue from a reinforcement of instinctual energy at some later period
in life. If this were so, we should have to modify our formula and
say ‘the strength of the instincts at a given moment’ rather than
“the constitutional strength of the instincts’. Now the first of our
questions was this : is it possible for analysis permanently and defini-
tively to resolve a conflict between instinct and ego or to settle a
pathogenic instinctual claim upon the ego? To avoid misunder-
standing we must perhaps define more exactly what we mean by the
phrase: ‘a permanent settlement of an instinctual claim’. We
certainly do not mean that we cause the claim to die away, so that
it never makes itself felt again. As a rule this is impossible and not
even desirable. No, we mean something else, something which may
be roughly described as the ‘restraining ` of the instinct. That is to
say, it is brought into harmony with the ego and becomes accessible
to the influence of the other ego-tendencies, no longer seeking for
independent gratification. If we are asked how and by what means
this result is achieved, we do not find it easy to answer. We say to
ourselves, * We must use a bit of magic’ 2: the ‘magic’ of metapsycho-
logy in fact. Without metapsychological speculation and theorizing—I
had almost said ` phantasy ` 一 we shall not get a step further. Un-
fortunately, here as elsewhere, what our magic reveals is neither very
clear nor very exact. We have only one single clue to follow—but a
clue the value of which cannot be exaggerated—namely, the antithesis
between the primary and the secondary processes, and to this I must
refer here.

Reverting to our first question, we find that our new approach to
the problem makes a particular conclusion inevitable. The question
was as follows : is it possible permanently and definitively to resolve
an instinctual conflict ? that is to say, to ‘restrain’ the instinctual
claim in the way I have described. Formulated thus, the question
contains no mention of the strength of the instinct, but it is precisely
this which determines the issue. Let us be quite clear that what
analysis achieves for neurotics is just what normal ‘people accomplish
for themselves without its help. But everyday experience teaches us
that in a normal person any solution of an instinctual conflict holds
good only so long as the instinct is of a particular degree of strength,

2 "So muss denn doch die Hexe dran '.

382 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

or rather, only so long as a particular relation is maintained between
the strength of the instinct and that of the ego.* If the latter becomes
enfeebled, whether through illness, exhaustion or for some similar
cause, all the instincts which have so far been successfully restrained
may renew their claims and strive in abnormal ways after substitutive
gratification.* We have irrefutable proof of this statement in what
takes place in dreams, when the reaction of the dreamer’s psyche to
the ego’s condition in sleep is the awakening of instinctual claims.

The material relating to the strength of the instincts is equally
unambiguous. Twice in the course of the development of the individual
certain instincts are powerfully reinforced: at puberty and at the
menopause in women. We are not in the least surprised if people who
were normal before become neurotic at these times. When the instincts
were not so strong these individuals succeeded in restraining them,
but they can no longer do so when the instincts acquire this new
strength. The repressions behave like dams in time of flood. That
which occurs regularly at both these periods, when for physiological
reasons the instincts become stronger, may occur sporadically as the
result of accidental influences at any other period in life. Factors
contributing to the reinforcement of instinct are fresh traumas, the
infliction of frustration and the interaction of the various instinctual
tendencies. The result is always the same and it renders the force of
the quantitative factor in the causation of illness even more irresistible.

I feel as if I ought to be ashamed of so much ponderous exposition,
seeing that all I have said has long been familiar and self-evident.
It is a fact that we have always behaved as if we knew these things,
yet for the most part our theoretical concepts fail to give the same
importance to the economic as to the dynamic and topographical

aspects of the case. So my excuse must be that I am drawing attention
to this omission.

5 If we are to be perfectly accurate, we must say, in a particular area
of this relation.

4 Here we have a justification of the ætiological pretensions of suck
indefinite factors as overwork, shock, etc. These have always been
certain of general recognition and psycho-analysis has had to assign them
rather into the background. It is impossible to define psychic health
except in terms of metapsychology, i.e. of the dynamic relations between
those institutions of the psychic apparatus, the existence of which psycho-
analysis has discovered, or, if our critics will have it so, has inferred or
conjectured.

SIGM. FREUD 383

Before we decide on an answer to our question, however, we must
listen to an objection the force of which lies in the fact that we are
very likely predisposed in its favour. It is contended that our argu-
ments are all deduced from the spontaneous processes that take place
between ego and instinct and that we assume that analytic therapy
can accomplish nothing which does not occur spontaneously under
favourable normal conditions. But is this really so? Is not the
claim of our theory precisely that analysis produces a state which
never does occur spontaneously within the ego and the creation of
which constitutes the main difference between the person who has
been analysed and the person who has not ? Let us consider on what
this claim is based. All repression takes place in early childhood ;
it is a primitive defensive measure adopted by the immature, feeble
ego. In later years there are no fresh repressions, but the old ones
persist and are used by the ego for the purpose of mastering instinct.
New conflicts are resolved by what we call ` after-repression `
To these infantile repressions our general statement applies that
they depend entirely on the relative power of the various psychic
institutions and cannot withstand an increase in the strength of
the instincts. Now analysis enables the mature ego, which by
this time has attained a greater strength, to review these old
repressions, with the result that some are lifted, while others are
accepted but reconstructed from more solid material. These new
dams have a greater power of resistance than the earlier ones; we
may be confident that they will not so easily give way before the
flood-tide of instinct. Thus the real achievement of analytic therapy
is a subsequent correction of the original process of repression, with
the result that the supremacy of the quantitative factor is brought
to an end.

So far our theory, to which we must adhere unless we are irresistibly
compelled to abandon it. And what is the testimony of our experience ?
Perhaps it is not yet wide enough to enable us to come to a definite
decision. Quite often it justifies our expectations, but not always.
Our impression is that we must not be surprised if the difference
between the person who has not and the person who has been analysed
is, after all, not so radical as we endeavour to make it and expect and
assert that it will be. Thus analysis does indeed sometimes succeed
in counteracting the effect of the increase in the strength of instinct,
but it does not invariably do so. Sometimes its effect is simply to
raise the power of the resistance put up by inhibitions, so that after

384 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

analysis they are equal to a much heavier strain than before the
analysis took place or if it had never taken place at all. I really
cannot commit myself to a decision on this point nor do I know
whether at the present time a decision is possible.

There is another angle from which we may approach this problem
of the uncertainty in the effect of analysis. We know that the first
step towards the intellectual mastery of the world in which we live
is the discovery of general principles, rules and laws which bring
order into chaos. By such mental operations we simplify the world
of phenomena, but we cannot avoid falsifying it in so doing; especially
when we are dealing with processes of development and change. We
are trying to discern a quantitative alteration and as a rule we neglect,
at any rate at first, one of the quantitative factors. In reality the
transitional and intermediate stages are far more common than the
sharply differentiated opposite states. In studying various develop-
ments and changes we focus our attention entirely on the result and
we readily overlook the fact that such processes are usually more or
less incomplete, that is to say, the changes that take place are really
only partial. A shrewd satirist of the Austria of old, J. Nestroy,
once said ` Every advance is only half as great as it looks at first".
One is tempted to think that this malicious dictum is universally
valid. There are almost always remains of what has been and a partial
arrest at a former stage. When an open-handed Mæcenas surprises
us by some isolated trait of miserliness or a person whose kind-hearted-
ness has been excessive suddenly indulges in some unfriendly act,
these are ` vestiges ` of what has been and are of priceless value for
genetic research. They show that every praiseworthy and valuable
quality is based on compensation and over-compensation which, as
was only to be expected, have not been absolutely and completely
successful. Our first account of libidinal development was that an
original oral phase was succeeded by a sadistic-anal, and this in its
turn by a phallic-genital phase. Later investigation has not contra-
dicted this view, but we must now qualify our statement by saying
that the one phase does not succeed the other suddenly but gradually,
so that part of the earlier organization aways persists side by side
with the later, and that even in normal development the transforma-
tion is never complete, the final structure often containing fragments
of earlier libidinal fixations. We see the same thing in quite different
connections. There is not one of the erroneous and superstitious
beliefs of mankind that are supposed to have been left behind but has

SIGM. FREUD 385

left a residue at the present day in the lower strata of civilized peoples
or even in the highest strata of cultivated society. All that has once
lived clings tenaciously to life. Sometimes we are inclined to doubt
whether the dragons of primæval times are really extinct.

Applying these remarks to our particular problem, I would say
that the answer to the question how we explain the uncertain results
of our analytic therapy might well be that our success in replacing
insecure repressions by the mastery of instinct in ways that are reliable
and ego-syntonic is not always complete, i.e. is not radical enough.
A change does occur but it is often only partial : parts of the old
mechanisms remain untouched by analysis. It is difficult to prove
that this is really so. We can only judge by the result which it seems
to explain. But the impressions we receive during our analytic work
do not contradict this hypothesis—rather, they confirm it. We have
to be careful not to imagine that the clarity of our own insight is a
measure of the conviction we produce in the mind of the analysand.
This conviction may lack ` depth / so to speak ; the point in question
is always that quantitative factor which is so easily overlooked. If
we now have the correct answer to our question, we may say that
analysis is always right in theory in its claim to cure neurosis by
ensuring the mastery of instinct but that in practice its claim is not
always justified. This is because it does not always succeed in laying
sufficiently firm foundations for the mastery of instinct. The reason
for this partial failure is easy to discover. The quantitative factor—
the strength of the instincts—in the past opposed the efforts of the
patient’s ego to defend itself, and now that analysis is called in to
help, that same factor limits the efficacy of this new attempt. If the
instincts are excessively strong the ego fails in its task, although it is
now mature and has the support of analysis, just as it failed in earlier
days in its helpless state ; its mastery of instinct is greater but not
complete, because the change in the defence-mechanism is only partial.
This is not surprising, for the power of analysis is not infinite; it
is limited, and the final result always depends on the relative strength
of the conflicting psychic institutions.

No doubt it is desirable to shorten analytic treatment, but we
shall achieve our therapeutic purpose only when we can give a greater
measure of help to the patient’s ego. At one time it seemed that
hypnotic influence was a splendid way of achieving our end; the
reasons why we had to abandon this method are well known. Hitherto
no substitute for hypnosis has been discovered, but we realize that it

386 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

was with this aim that such a master of analysis as Ferenczi devoted
his last years to therapeutic experiments which were, alas ! in vain.

IV

The two related questions: whether, when dealing with one
instinctual conflict, we can guard a patient against such conflicts in
the future and whether it is practicable and advisable for purposes of
prophylaxis to stir up a conflict which is not at the moment manifest
must be treated together. Obviously the first task can be accom-
plished only if one performs the second, i.e. if one turns a possible
future conflict into a present one and then brings analytic influence
to bear upon it. This new problem is really only an extension of the
earlier one. In the first instance we were considering how to guard
against the return of the same conflict : now we are considering the
possible substitution of a second conflict for the first. This sounds a
very ambitious proposal but we are really only trying to make clear
what limits are set to the efficacy of analytic therapy.

Tempting as it may be to our therapeutic ambition to propose such
tasks for itself, experience bids us refuse them out of hand. If anin-
stinctual conflict is not a present one and does not manifest itself in any
way, it cannot be influenced by analysis. The warning that we should
“let sleeping dogs lie 一 as we аге so often told in connection with our
investigation of the psychic underworld—is peculiarly inapposite when
applied to the relations existing in psychic life. For, if the instincts are
causing disturbances it is a proof that the dogs are not sleeping and if it
is evident that they really are sleeping, we have not the power to wake
them. Thislast statement, however, does not seem entirely accurate and
we must consider it in greater detail. Let us consider the means we have
at our disposal for transforming a latent into a present instinctual con-
flict. Clearly there are only two things we can do: either we can
bring about situations in which the conflict becomes actual or we can
content ourselves with discussing it in analysis and pointing out that
it may possibly arise. The first of these two alternatives can be
accomplished in two different ways, either in reality, or in the trans-
ference. In either case we expose the patient to a measure of real
suffering through frustration and the damming-up of libido. Now it
is true that in ordinary analytic practice we do make use of this
technique. Otherwise, what would be the meaning of the rule that
analysis must be carried through ` in a state of abstinence’? But we
use it when we are dealing with a conflict which is already present.

SIGM. FREUD zan

We try to bring this conflict to a head and to develop it in its most
acute form in order to increase the instinctual energy necessary for
its solution. Analytic experience has taught us that the better is
always the enemy of the good and that in every phase of the patient's
restoration we have to combat his inertia, which disposes him to be
content with a partial solution of his conflicts.

If, however, our aim is the prophylactic treatment of instinctual
conflicts which are not actual but merely possible, it is not enough
to deal with the suffering which the patient is inevitably undergoing.
We must make up our minds to conjure up fresh suffering—a thing
which we have so far rightly left to fate. Public opinion would warn
us against the presumption of vying with fate in putting wretched
human beings to such cruel experiments. And what sort of experi-
ments would they be ? Could we, for purposes of prophylaxis, take
the responsibility of destroying a happy marriage or causing a patient
to give up work upon which his livelihood depended ? Fortunately
there is no question of having to justify such interference with real life.
We have not the plenary powers which such intervention would
demand and most certainly the object of this therapeutic experiment
would refuse to co-operate with it. In practice then, this method
may be said to be excluded and there are, besides, theoretical objections
to it, for the work of analysis progresses best when the patient’s
pathogenic experiences belong to the past so that the ego can stand
at a distance from them. In conditions of acute crisis it is almost
impossible to use analysis. In such states the whole interest of the
ego is concentrated on the painful reality, and resists analysis, which
seeks to penetrate below the surface and to discover the influences to
which the patient has been exposed in the past. Thus to create a
fresh conflict will only make the analysis longer and more difficult.

It may be objected that all this discussion is quite superfluous.
Nobody imagines that a latent instinctual conflict can be treated by
purposely conjuring up a fresh painful situation. As a prophylactic
achievement this would not be much to boast of. Let us take an
example : we know that when a patient recovers from scarlatina he
has become immune from a recurrence of that illness. But it never
occurs to a physician on that account to infect a patient with scarlatina
in order to make him immune. It is not the business of prophylactic
treatment to produce the same dangerous situation as that of the illness
itself but only something much more mild, asin the case of vaccination
and many similar modes of treatment. Similarly, in the analytic prophy-

388 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

laxis of instinctual conflicts the only methods which we need really
consider are the other two: the artificial production of new conflicts in
the transference (conflicts which lack the character of reality) and the
rousing of such conflicts in the imagination of the analysand by speaking
to him about them and telling him that they may possibly arise.

I do not know if we can assert that the first of these two less drastic
procedures is out of the question in analysis. No experiments have
been made in this particular direction. But some difficulties at once
suggest themselves which make the success of such an undertaking
very problematic. In the first place the choice of such situations for
the transference is very limited. The analysand himself cannot
embody all his conflicts in the transference, nor can the transference-
situation be so employed by the analyst as to rouse all the instinctual
conflicts in which the patient may possibly become engaged. We may
incite him to jealousy or inflict upon him the pain of disappointed
love, but no special intention is necessary for this purpose. These
things happen spontaneously in most analyses. But in the second
place we must not overlook the fact that any such deliberate procedure
would necessitate unkind behaviour on the part of the analyst towards
the patient and this would have an injurious effect upon his affectionate
attitude towards the analyst, i.e. upon the positive transference
which is the strongest motive of the analysand for co-operating in the
work of analysis. So we shall not form any high expectation of the
results of such a technique.

This leaves only the other method, which is probably the only one
originally contemplated. The analyst will tell the patient about
possible instinctual conflicts which may occur and will lead him to
expect that they will occur in himself. This is done in the hope that
the information and warning will have the effect of activating in the
patient one of these conflicts in a moderate degree and yet sufficiently
for it to be dealt with. But here experience speaks with no uncertain
voice. The result hoped for is not achieved. The patient hears what
you say but it rouses no response in his mind. He probably thinks to
himself, ` That is very interesting but I see no sign of it in myself".
We have increased his knowledge but effected no other change in his
mind. We have much the same situation when people read psycho-
analytical writings. The reader is ' stimulated ` only by those passages
which he feels apply to himself, i.e. which refer to conflicts that are
active in him. Everything else leaves him cold. I think we have a
similar experience when we enlighten children on matters of sex.

SIGM. FREUD 389

I am far from maintaining that this is a harmful or unnecessary thing
to do, but it is clear that the prophylactic effect of this liberal measure
has been vastly over-estimated. After such enlightenment the children
know something that they did not know before but they make no use
of the new knowledge imparted to them. We come to the conclusion
that they are by no means ready to sacrifice those sexual theories
which may be said to be a natural growth and which they have con-
structed in harmony with and in dependence on their undeveloped
libidinal organization—theories about the part played by the stork,
about the nature of sexual intercourse and about the way in which
children are born. For a long time after they have been enlightened
on these subjects they behave like primitive peoples who have had
Christianity thrust upon them and continue in secret to worship their
old idols.
y

Our starting-point was the question how to shorten the tediousiy
long duration of an analysis and, still pursuing the question of time,
we went on to consider whether we achieve permanent cure or
prevent illness in the future by prophylactic treatment. We saw
that the success of our therapeutic work depended on the influence of
traumatic factors in the ætiology of the neurosis, on the relative
strength of the instincts which have to be mastered and on something
Which we called modification of the ego. Only the second of these
factors has been discussed in any detail and we have had occasion
in so doing to recognize the paramount importance of the quantitative
factor and to stress the claim of the metapsychological standpoint to
be taken into account in any attempt at explanation.

Of the third factor, the modification of the ego, we have as yet
said nothing. The first impression received when we turn our attention
to it is that there is much to ask and to answer, and that what we can
say on the subject will prove very inadequate. This impression is
confirmed when we go into the problem further. We know that the
essence of the analytic situation is that the analyst enters into an
alliance with the ego of the analysand to subdue certain parts of his
id which he has failed to master, i.e. to include them in the synthesis
of the ego. The fact that in the case of psychotics this co-operation
is never successful brings us to our first definite conclusion. If we
want to make a compact with the patient's ego, that ego must be
normal. But such a normal ego is, like normality in general, an ideal

fiction. The abnormal ego which is of no use for our purpose is un-
26

390 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

fortunately no fiction. Now every normal person is only approxi-
mately normal: his ego resembles that of the psychotic in one point
or another, in a greater or lesser degree, and by its distance from one
end of the scale and his proximity to the other we may provisionally
estimate the extent of that which we have so indefinitely called the
* modification of the ego '.

If we ask what is the source of the infinite variety of kinds and
degrees of ego-modification we cannot escape the first obvious alterna-
tive that such modifications are either congenital or acquired. The
second case will be the easier to treat. If they are acquired it must
certainly have been during the individual's development from the
very beginning of his life. From the very outset the ego has to try
to fulfil its task of acting as an intermediary between the id and the
outside world in the service of the pleasure-principle, to protect the
id from the dangers of the outside world. If, while thus endeavouring,
the ego learns to adopt a defensive attitude towards its own id and to
treat the instinctual demands of the latter like external dangers, this
is at any rate partly because it understands that gratification of
instinct would lead to conflicts with the outside world. Under the
influence of its upbringing, the child’s ego accustoms itself to shift
the scene of the battle from outside to inside and to master the inner
danger before it becomes external. Probably it is generally right in
so doing. In this battle on two fronts—later there is a third front
as well—the ego makes use of various methods of fulfilling its task,
ie. to put it in general terms, of avoiding danger, anxiety and un-
pleasure. We call these devices defence-mechanisms. Our knowledge
of them is as yet incomplete. Anna Freud’s book has given us our
first insight into their multiplicity and their manifold significance.

One of these mechanisms, that of repression, provided the starting-
point for the study of neurotic processes in general. There was never
any doubt that repression was not the only method which the ego
could employ for its purposes. Nevertheless, repression is something
quite peculiar, more sharply differentiated from the other mechanisms
than these are from one another. I think I can make its relation to
these other mechanisms clear by a comparison, but I know that
comparisons never carry us very far in such a context. Let us imagine
what might have happened to a book at the time when books were
not printed in editions but written out separately by hand. We will
imagine that such a book contained statements which at a later time

5 Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. Hogarth Press.

SIGM. FREUD 391

would be regarded as undesirable. For instance, Robert Eisler *
maintains that the writings of Flavius Josephus must have contained
passages about Jesus Christ which were offensive to later Christendom.
At the present day the only defence-mechanism to which the official
censor would resort would be the confiscation and destruction of every
copy of the whole edition. At that time other methods were employed
to render the book innocuous. Either the offensive passages were
heavily obliterated, so that they were illegible, in which case they
could not be transcribed and the next copyist of the book produced a
text to which no exception could be taken but which had gaps in
certain places, probably making the passages in question unintelligible.
Or, not satisfied with this, they tried to conceal any indication that
the text had been mutilated. They therefore proceeded to tamper
with the text. Single words here and there were left out or replaced
by others and whole new sentences were interpolated ; at best, the
passage was completely erased and replaced by another in exactly
the opposite sense. When the book was next transcribed the text
aroused no suspicion but had, in fact, been falsified. It no longer
contained the author's statement and very probably the correction
was not in the interests of truth.

Without pressing the comparison too closely we may say that
repression is to the other methods of defence what the omission of
words or passages is to the corruption of a text, and in the various
forms of this falsification we can discover analogies to the manifold
ways in which the ego may be modified. It may be objected that this
comparison breaks down in an essential particular, for the corruption
of a text is the work of a tendencious censorship to which we have no
counterpart in the development of the ego. But this is not so, for
this tendency is amply represented by the compelling force of the
pleasure-principle. The psychic apparatus is intolerant of unpleasure
and strives to ward it off at all costs and, if the perception of reality
involves unpleasure, that perception—i.e. the truth—must be sacrificed.
For quite a long time flight and an avoidance of a dangerous situation
serve as expedients in the face of external danger, until the individual
is finally strong enough to remove the menace by actively modifying
reality. But one cannot flee from oneself and no flight avails against
danger from within; hence the ego’s defence-mechanisms are con-

* Robert Eisler, Jesus Basileus. Religionswissenschaftliche Bibliothek,
begründet von W. Streitberg, Band 9, Heidelberg bei Carl Winter, 1929.

392 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

demned to falsify the inner perception, so that it transmits to us only
an imperfect and travestied picture of our id. In its relations with
the id the ego is paralysed by its restrictions or blinded by its errors,
and the result in the sphere of psychic processes may be compared
to the progress of a poor walker in a country which he does not know.

The purpose of the defence-mechanisms is to avert dangers of
various kinds. It cannot be disputed that they are successful; it is
doubtful whether the ego can altogether do without them during its
development, but it is also certain that they themselves may become
dangerous. Not infrequently it turns out that the ego has paid too
high a price for the services which these mechanisms render. The
expenditure of energy necessary to maintain them and the ego-restric-
tions which they almost invariably entail prove a heavy burden on
the psychic economy. Moreover these mechanisms are not relinquished
after they have helped the ego through the difficult years of its develop-
ment. Of course, no individual makes use of all the possible
mechanisms of defence: each person merely selects certain of them,
but these become fixated in his ego, establishing themselves as regular
modes of reaction for that particular character, which are repeated
throughout life whenever a similar situation occurs to that which
originally evoked them. They are, in fact, infantilisms and share
the fate of so many institutions which struggle to maintain themselves
when they have outlived their usefulness. ‘ Reason becomes unreason,
beneficence a torment ',7 as the poet laments. The adult ego with
its greater strength continues to defend itself against dangers which
no longer exist in reality and even finds itself impelled to seek out
those real situations which may serve as a substitute for the original
danger, so as to be able to justify its clinging to its habitual modes of
reaction. Thus the defence-mechanisms produce an ever-growing
alienation from the outside world and a permanent enfeeblement of
the ego and we can easily understand how they pave the way for and
precipitate the outbreak of neurosis.

For the moment, however, we are not concerned with the patho-
genic röle of the defence-mechanisms. Our purpose is to discover
how our therapeutic work is affected by the ego-modification they
produce. The material for the answer to this question is contained
in Anna Freud's work, to which I have already referred. The main
point is that the analysand repeats these modes of reaction during

7 * Vernunft wird Unsinn, Wohltat Plage '.

SIGM. FREUD 303

analysis itself, exhibiting them, as it were, before our eyes; in fact
that is the only means we have of learning about them. This must
not be taken to imply that they make analysis impossible. On the
contrary, they constitute half of our analytic task. The other half,
the first to be tackled by analysis in its early days, is the revelation
of that which is hidden in the id. In our therapeutic work we con-
stantly alternate between the id and the ego, analysing now a fragment
of the one and now of the other. In the one case our aim is to bring
a part of the id into consciousness and in the other to correct something
in the ego. The crux of the matter is that the mechanisms of defence
against former dangers recur in analysis in the shape of resistances to
cure. The consequence is that the ego’s attitude to the cure itself is
that of defence against a new danger.

The therapeutic effect of analysis depends on the bringing into
consciousness of that which is, in the widest sense, repressed within
the id. We prepare the way for this operation by our interpretations
and constructions, but so long as the ego clings to its former defences
and refuses to abandon its resistances we have interpreted merely
to our own satisfaction, not to that of the patient. Now these resist-
ances, although they belong to the ego, are nevertheless unconscious
and, in a certain sense, they are in a position of isolation within the
ego. The analyst recognizes them more easily than the hidden material
in the id; one would suppose it would be enough to treat them as
parts of the id and to bring them into relation with the rest of the ego
by introducing them to the patient’s consciousness. This would
mean that half of our analytic task had been accomplished : we are
hardly prepared for a resistance to the discovery of resistances. But
what takes place is as follows. While we are analysing the resistances,
the ego—more or less of set purpose—breaks the compact upon which
the analytic situation is based. It ceases to support us in our efforts
to reveal the id, it opposes these efforts, disobeys the fundamental
rule of analysis and suffers no further derivatives of repressed material
to emerge into consciousness. It is too much to expect that the
patient should have a firm conviction of the curative power of analysis,
but he may have come to the analyst with a certain amount of con-
fidence and this, reinforced by the various factors in the positive
transference which it is our business to evoke makes him capable
of doing his share. The effect of the unpleasurable impulses which
he feels stirring in him when his defensive conflicts are once more
roused may be that the negative transference takes the field and the

394 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

whole analytic situation is broken up. The patient now regards the
analyst simply as an alien personality who makes disagreeable demands
upon him and he behaves towards him exactly like a child who does
not like a stranger and has no confidence in him. If the analyst tries
to explain to the patient one of the distortions which his defence has
produced and to correct it, he meets with a complete lack of compre-
hension and an imperviousness to valid arguments. We see then that
there really is a resistance to the discovery of resistances and the
defence-mechanisms do deserve the name which we originally gave
them before they had been more closely examined ; there are resist-
ances not only to the bringing of id-contents into consciousness but
also to the whole process of analysis and so to cure.

The effect which the defensive activities produce within the ego
is rightly described as ` modification of the ego’, if by this we under-
stand the deviation of the ego from an imaginary norm which would
ensure the patient's unswerving loyalty to his undertaking when he
entered upon analysis. We can well believe what our daily experience
suggests, that the outcome of an analysis depends principally upon
the strength and depth of the roots of the resistances constituting
the ego-modification. Once more we realize the importance of the
quantitative factor and once more we are reminded that analysis has
only certain limited quantities of energy upon which to draw when
matching itself with the hostile forces. And it does seem as if victory
were really for the most part with the big battalions.

VI

Our next question will be whether all ego-modification (in the
sense in which we are using the term) is acquired during the defensive
conflicts of early childhood. There can be no doubt about the answer.
We have no reason to dispute the existence and importance of primal,
congenital ego-variations. The single fact is decisive that every
individual selects only certain of the possible defence-mechanisms
and invariably employs those which he has selected. This suggests
that each individual ego is endowed from the beginning with its own
peculiar dispositions and tendencies, though we cannot predicate their
nature and conditioning factors. Moreover, we know that we must
not exaggerate the difference between inherited and acquired charac-
teristics into an antithesis; that which has been acquired by our
ancestors is certainly an important part of what we inherit. When
we speak of ‘archaic inheritance’ we are generally thinking only

SIGM. FREUD 305

of the id and apparently we assume that an ego was non-existent at
the beginning of the individuals life. But we must not overlook the
fact that id and ego are originally one, and it does not imply a-mystical
over-estimation of heredity if we think it credible that, even before
the ego exists, its subsequent lines of development, tendencies and
reactions are already determined. The psychological peculiarities of
families, races and nations, even in their attitude towards analysis,
admit of no other explanation. Nay, more, analytic experience
convinces us that particular psychic contents, such as symbolism,
have no other source than that of hereditary transmission, and research
in various fields of folk-psychology seems to justify the assumption
that in archaic inheritance there are other, no less specialized, deposits
from primitive human development.

When we recognize that the peculiarities of the ego which we
detect in the form of resistances may be not only acquired in defensive
conflicts but transmitted by heredity, the topographical differentiation
between ego and id loses much of its value for our investigations.
When we advance a step further in analytic experience we come upon
resistances of another type, which we can no longer localize and which
seem to be conditioned by certain fundamental relations within the
psychic apparatus. I can give only a few examples of the type of
resistance to which I refer : this whole field of inquiry is still bewilder-
ingly strange and has not been sufficiently explored. We come across
people, for instance, of whom we should say that they display a peculiar
“adhesiveness of the libido’. The processes to which their analysis
gives rise are so much slower than in other people because they appar-
ently cannot make up their minds to detach libidinal cathexes from
one object and displace them to another, although there is no particular
reason for such cathectic fidelity. Then we meet the opposite type in
which the libido seems specially mobile : it readily enters upon the
new cathexes suggested by the analysis, abandoning its former ones
for these. The difference between the two types is comparable to
that experienced by a sculptor according as he works in hard stone or
soft clay. Unfortunately in the latter type the results of analysis
often prove very evanescent ; the new cathexes are soon abandoned
and one feels not as if one had worked in clay but as if one had written
in water. The old saw Light come, light go " 8 proves true here.

In another group of patients we are surprised by an attitude which

8 ` Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen '.

396 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

we can only put down to a loss of the plasticity we should expect, an
exhaustion of the capacity for change and development. We are indeed
prepared for a certain degree of psychic inertia in analysis; when
new paths are pointed out for the instinctual impulses, we almost
invariably see that there is an obvious hesitation in entering upon
them. We have described this attitude, though perhaps not quite
rightly, as "resistance from the id’. But in the cases which I have
in mind all the mental processes, relations and distributions of energy
are immutable, fixed and rigid. One finds the same state of affairs in
very old people, when it is explained by the so-called force of habit,
the exhaustion of receptivity through a kind of psychic entropy ;
but I am thinking of people who are still young. Our theoretical
knowledge does not seem adequate to explain these types. Probably
some element of time is at work here, changes in some rhythm in the
development of psychic life which we have not yet apprehended.

In yet another group of cases the patients’ resistance to analysis
and the obstacles in the way of cure are probably due to variations
in the ego which spring from another and even deeper root. Here we
come to the ultimate phenomena to which psychological research
has penetrated—the behaviour of the two primal instincts, their
distribution, fusion and defusion, things which we cannot imagine
to be confined to a single province of the mental apparatus, whether
it be id, ego or super-ego. Nothing impresses us more strongly in
connection with the resistances encountered in analysis than the fact
that there is a force which defends itself by all possible means against
recovery and clings tenaciously to illness and suffering. We have
recognized that part of this force is the consciousness of guilt and the
need for punishment, and this is undoubtedly correct; we have
localized it in the ego’s relation to the super-ego. But this is only
one element in it, that which may be described as psychically bound
by the super-ego and which we perceive in this form. We may suppose
that other portions of the same force are at work, either bound or free,
in some unspecified region of the psyche. If we bear in mind the
whole picture made up of the phenomena of the masochism inherent
in so many people, of the negative therapeutic reaction and of the
neurotic's consciousness of guilt, we shall have to abandon the belief
that psychic processes are governed exclusively by the striving after
pleasure. These phenomena are unmistakable indications of the
existence of a power in psychic life which, according to its aim, we
call the instinct of aggression or destruction and which we derive from

SIGM. FREUD 397

the primal death-instinct of animate matter. It is not a question of
an optimistic as opposed to a pessimistic theory of life. Only by the
interaction and counteraction of the two primal instincts—Eros and
the death-instinct, never by one or the other alone, can the motley
variety of vital phenomena be explained.

How the elements of these two types of instinct combine to fulfil
the various vital functions, under what conditions such coalitions tend
to dissolve and finally break up, what disturbances correspond to
these changes and what sensations they evoke in the perceptual
gamut of the pleasure-principle—these are problems whose elucidation
would be the most valuable achievement of psychological research.
For the moment we must bow to those superior powers which foil our
attempts. Even to exert a psychic influence upon a simple case of
masochism is a severe tax on our skill.

In studying the phenomena which testify to the activity of the
instinct of destruction we are not confined to the observation of
pathological material. There are countless facts in normal mental
life which require this explanation, and the keener the power of our
discernment the greater the abundance in which they present them-
selves to our notice. The subject is too novel and too important to be
treated as a side-issue in this discussion ; I will content myself with
selecting a few specimens of these phenomena. Here is an example :
It is well known that at all times there have been, as there still are,
human beings who can take as their sexual objects persons of either
sex and that the one orientation is no impediment to the other. We
call these people bisexual and accept the fact of their existence without
wondering much at it. But we have come to know that all human
beings are bisexual in this sense and that their libido is distributed
between objects of both sexes, either in a manifest or a latent form. But
the following point strikes us. While in the individuals I first mentioned
the НЫЙ та] impulses can take both directions without producing clash,
in other and more frequent cases the result is an irreconcilable conflict.
A man's heterosexuality will not tolerate homosexuality, and vice versa:
If the former tendency is the stronger, it succeeds in keeping the
latter in a state of latency and preventing its attaining real gratifica-
tion. On the other hand there is no greater danger for a man’s hetero-
sexual function than that of disturbance by latent homosexuality.
We might explain these facts by saying that each individual has only
a given quantity of libido at his disposal and that the two rival orienta-
tions have to contend for it. But it is not clear why these rivals

398 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

should not regularly divide between them the available quantity of
libido, according to their relative strength, as does happen in some
cases. We are forced to conclude that there is something peculiar
in the tendency to conflict, something which introduces a new element
into the situation, independently of the quantity of libido. It is
difficult to account for this spontaneous tendency to conflict except
as the intervention of an element of free aggression.

If we recognize that the case which I have just described is a
manifestation of the instinct of destruction or aggression we are at
once confronted with the question whether this notion should not be
extended to apply to other instances of conflict, or, indeed, whether
we ought not to review all our knowledge of psychic conflict from
this new angle. We assume that, in the course of the development
of human beings from their primitive state to civilization a considerable
part of their aggression is internalized, turned inwards and, if this is
so, inner conflicts are certainly the correct equivalent of the external
conflicts which have now ceased. I am well aware that the dualistic
theory according to which an instinct of death, destruction or aggres-
sion claims. equal partnership with Eros as manifested in libido, has
met with little general acceptance and has not really established itself
even among psycho-analysts. My delight was proportionately great
when I recently discovered that our theory was held by one of the
great thinkers of ancient Greece. So glad am I of this confirmation
that I willingly sacrifice the prestige of originality, especially as I
read so widely in earlier years that I can never be quite certain that
what I thought was a creation of my own mind may not really have
been an outcome of cryptomnesia.

Empedocles of Akragas (Girgenti),® born about 495 B.c., is one of
the grandest and most remarkable figures in the history of Greek
civilization. The interests of this many-sided personality took the
most varied directions. He was a scientist and thinker, a prophet and
worker of miracles, a politician, a philanthropist and a physician versed
in natural science. He was said to have freed the town of Selinus
from malaria, and his contemporaries worshipped him as a god. In
his mind the sharpest contrasts seem to have co-existed ; exact and
sober in his investigations in physics and physiology, he did not
recoil from obscure mysticism and he indulged in cosmic speculations
of astonishingly fantastic boldness. Capelle compares him with

9 I have based what follows on a work by Wilhelm Capelle, Die
Vorsokratiker. Alfred Kroner, Leipzig, 1935.

SIGM. FREUD 399

Dr. Faustus, ‘to whom many a secret was revealed’. Born at a
time when the realm of science was not yet divided into so many
provinces, he held some theories which inevitably strike us as primitive.
He explained the variety of things by the fusion of the four elements,
earth, water, fire and air, and he held that all nature was animate
and believed in the transmigration of souls. At the same time, how-
ever, he had such modern ideas as that of the gradual evolution of
living beings, the survival of the fittest and the recognition of the rôle
of chance (тих) in this development.

The theory of Empedocles which specially claims our attention is
that which approximates so closely to the psycho-analytical theory
of instinct that we should be tempted to maintain that the two are
identical, were it not for this difference: the Greek's theory is a
cosmic phantasy, while our own confines itself to its biological applica-
tion. At the same time, the fact that Empedocles ascribed to the
universe the same principle of animation as is manifested in each
individual living creature makes this difference considerably less
important.

The Greek philosopher taught that there were two principles of
natural process in the life of the universe as in that of the mind and
that these principles were eternally in conflict with one another. He
called them み ゐ み Aa 一 love 一 and veíkos—strife. The one of these
powers, which he really conceived of as natural forces working as
instincts, and certainly not as intelligences with a conscious aim,!°
strives to unite the atoms of these four elements in one great sphere,
while the other seeks to dissolve these fusions and to separate the
atoms of the elements. Empedocles conceives of the world-process
as a continuous, never-ceasing alternation of periods in which the
one or the other of the two fundamental forces triumphs, so that at
one time love and, at another time, strife fulfils its purpose and governs
the universe, after which the other vanquished power asserts itself
and in its turn prevails.

The two fundamental principles of Empedocles—dudia and veikos—
are, both in name and in function, the same as our two primal instincts,
Eros and Destruction, the former of which strives to comprehend
existing phenomena in ever greater unities, while the latter seeks to
dissolve these combinations and destroy the forms to which they have
given rise. But we shall not be surprised to find that this theory has

19 Loc, cit. S. 186.

400 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

changed in certain respects on its re-emergence after two and a half
thousand years. Apart from the limitations imposed upon us by the
biopsychical standpoint, we no longer take as our fundamental elements
the four elements of Empedocles; animate matter is now sharply
differentiated from inanimate and we no longer think of the mingling
and separation of particles of matter but of the fusion and defusion
of instinct-components. Moreover, we now have a certain biological
basis for the principle of ' strife ”, since we trace the instinct of destruc-
tion to the death-instinct, the urge of animate matter to return to
its inanimate state. We are of course not asserting that this instinct
first arose with the dawning of life or denying that it existed before.
And nobody can foresee in what guise the nucleus of truth contained
in the theory of Empedocles will present itself to the vision of a later
day.
VII

In 1927, S. Ferenczi read a paper, entitled Das Problem der
Beendigung der Analysen 11, which contained an abundance of valuable
material. He concluded it with the comforting assurance that ‘ analysis
is by no means an interminable process. On the contrary, if the
analyst has a thorough knowledge of his business and a sufficient
fund of patience the treatment can be carried to a natural conclusion '.
This paper as a whole does, however, seem to me to convey a warning
not to aim at the shortening but rather at the deepening of the analytic
process. Ferenczi makes the further important point that success
very largely depends upon the analyst`s having profited by the lesson
of his own " errors and mistakes, and got the better of " the weak
points in his own personality ”. This is an important contribution to
our problem. Amongst the factors which influence the prospects of
an analysis and add to its difficulties in the same manner as the resist-
ances, we must reckon not only the structure of the patient’s own ego
but the personal characteristics of the analyst.

It cannot be disputed that analysts do not in their own personalities
wholly come up to the standard of psychic normality which they set
for their patients. Opponents of analysis are wont to point this out
derisively and use it as an argument to prove the uselessness of the
analytic method. We might seek to refute the criticism by asserting
that it makes an unjustifiable demand upon analysts, who are individ-
uals trained in the practice of a certain art and are presumably ordinary

M Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Ва. XIV, 1928.

SIGM. FREUD 401

human beings. Nobody surely maintains that a physician is incapable
of treating internal diseases because his own internal organs happen
to be unsound. On the contrary, it may be argued that there is a
certain advantage when a man who is himself threatened with tuber-
culosis specializes in the treatment of that disease. But the cases
are not on all fours. So long as he is capable of practising at all,
a physician suffering from lung or heart trouble is not handicapped
in diagnosing or treating internal disease. The analyst, on the other
hand, because of the peculiar conditions of his work is really prevented
by his own defects from discerning his patient's situation correctly
and reacting to it in a manner conducive to cure. So there is some
reason in the demand for a high degree of psychic normality and
correct adjustment in the analyst as evidence of his qualifications for
his work. And there is another point: he must be in a superior
position to that of his patient if he is to serve as a model for the latter
in certain analytic situations and, in others, to act as his teacher.
Finally, we must not forget that the relationship between analyst and
patient rests on the love of truth as its foundation, that is, on the
acknowledgment of reality, and it precludes every sort of sham
and deception.

Here let us pause for a moment to assure the analyst that he has
our sincere sympathy in the very exacting requirements of his practice.
It almost looks as if analysis were the third of those ‘impossible `
professions in which one can be sure only of unsatisfying results.
The other two, as has long been agreed, are the bringing-up of children
and the government of nations. Obviously we cannot demand that
the prospective analyst should be a perfect human being before he
takes up analysis, so that only persons of this rare and exalted perfec-
tion should enter the profession. But where and how is even the
most inadequate of individuals to acquire the ideal qualifications for
his work ? The answer is : in his own analysis, with which he begins
his training. For practical reasons this analysis can be only short
and incomplete: the main object of it is to enable the training-
analyst to form an opinion whether the candidate should be accepted
for further training. The training-analysis has accomplished its
purpose if it imparts to the novice a sincere conviction of the existence
of the unconscious, enables him through the emergence of repressed
material in his own mind to perceive in himself processes which other-
wise he would have regarded as incredible and gives him a first sample
of the technique which has proved to be the only correct method in

402 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

conducting analyses. This in itself would not constitute an adequate
training, but we hope and believe that the stimuli received in the
candidate’s own analysis will not cease to act upon him when that
analysis ends, that the processes of ego-transformation will go on of
their own accord and that he will bring his new insight to bear upon
all his subsequent experience. This does indeed happen and, just in
so far as it happens, it qualifies the candidate who has been analysed
to become an analyst.

Unfortunately something else happens as well. One can only
give one’s impressions in describing this second result. Hostility on
the one hand and partisanship on the other create an atmosphere
unfavourable to objective investigation. It does look as if a number
of analysts learn to apply defence-mechanisms which enable them to
divert the conclusions and requirements of analysis from themselves,
probably by applying them to others. They themselves remain as
they are and evade the critical and corrective influence of analysis.
Perhaps this confirms the dictum of a writer who warns us that it is
hard for a mortal who acquires power not to misuse it.1? Sometimes,
when we try to understand this attitude in analysts, we are irresistibly
and disagreeably reminded of the effect of the X-rays on those who
use them without due precaution. We can hardly be surprised if
constant pre-occupation with all the repressed impulses which struggle
for freedom in the human psyche sometimes causes all the instinctual
demands which have hitherto been restrained to be violently awakened
in the analyst himself. These are ‘ dangers of analysis ', threatening
not the passive but the active partner in the analytic situation, and
it is our duty to face them. There can be no doubt how they must be
encountered. Every analyst ought periodically himself to submit to
analysis, at intervals of, say, five years, without any feeling of shame
in so doing. This is as much as to say that not only the patient's
analysis but that of the analyst himself is a task which is never finished.

At this point we must guard against a misconception. It is not
my intention to assert that analysis in general is an interminable
business. Whatever our theoretical view may be, I believe that in
practice analyses do come to an end. Every analyst of experience
will be able to think of a number of cases in which he has taken perman-
ent leave of the patient rebus bene gestis. There is a far greater dis-
crepancy between theory and practice in cases of so-called character-

12 Anatole France, La révolte des anges.

SIGM. FREUD 403

analysis. Here it is not easy to predict a natural end to the process,
even if we do not look for impossibilities or ask too much of analysis.
Our object will be not to rub off all the corners of the human psyche
so as to produce ` normality ` according to schedule nor yet to demand
that the person who has been ‘thoroughly analysed’ shall never
again feel the stirrings of passions in himself or become involved in
any mental conflict. The business of analysis is to secure the best
possible psychological conditions for the functioning of the ego;
when this has been done, analysis has accomplished its task.

VIII

Both in therapeutic and character-analyses we are struck by the
prominence of two themes which give the analyst an extraordinary
amount of trouble. We soon come to the conclusion that some general
principle is at work here. These two themes are connected with the
difference between the sexes: one is characteristic of men and the
other equally characteristic of women. In spite of the difference in
content there is an obvious correspondence between the two. Some
factor common to both sexes is forced, by the difference between
them, to express itself differently in the one and in the other.

The two corresponding themes are, in women, envy of the penis—
the striving after the possession of a male genital—and, in men, the
struggle against their passive or feminine attitude towards other
men. In its early days psycho-analysis defined this common factor
as the individual's attitude to the castration-complex. Subsequently
Alfred Adler coined the term ‘ masculine protest ', which, in the case
of men, is exactly right. I think that, from the beginning, ` repudiation
of femininity ' would have been the correct description of this remark-
able feature in the psychic life of mankind.

Supposing that we now try to introduce this notion into the struc-
ture of psycho-analytical theory we shall find that, by its very nature,
this factor cannot occupy the same place in the case of both sexes.
In males the masculine striving is from the beginning and throughout
entirely ego-syntonic ; the passive attitude, since it necessitates the
assumption of castration, is energetically repressed and often the
only indications of its existence are exaggerated over-compensations.
In females also the striving after masculinity is consonant with the
ego at a certain period, namely, in the phallic phase, before develop-
ment in the direction of femininity has set in. But later it succumbs
to that momentous process of repression, the outcome of which (as

404 ANALYSIS TERMINABLE AND INTERMINABLE

has often been pointed out) determines the fate of the woman's femin-
inity. A great deal depends upon whether a sufficient amount of her
masculinity-complex escapes repression and exercises a lasting influence
on her character. Normally large portions of that complex undergo
transformation and contribute to the development of femininity.
The unsatisfied wish for a penis is destined to be converted into a
wish for a child and for a man, who possesses a penis. Very often
indeed, however, we find that the wish for masculinity persists in the
unconscious and, in its repressed state, exercises a disturbing influence.
As is plain from what has just been said, in both cases it is the
attitude of the opposite sex which succumbs to repression. I have
stated elsewhere 13 that it was Wilhelm Fliess who called my attention
to this point. Fliess was inclined to regard the difference between
the sexes as the true cause and original motive of repression. I can
only repeat that I do not accept this view: I do not think we are
justified in sexualizing repression in this way—that is to say, in
explaining it on a biological instead of a purely psychological basis.
The paramount importance of these two themes—the wish for a
penis in women and, in men, the struggle with passivity—did not
escape the notice of Ferenczi. In the paper that he read in 1927 he
laid it down as a principle that in every successful analysis these two
complexes must have been resolved.14 From my own experience I
would observe that in this I think Ferenczi was asking a very great
deal. In no phase of one’s analytic work does one suffer more from
the oppressive feeling that all one’s efforts have been in vain and
from the suspicion that one is " talking to the winds than when one
tries to persuade a female patient to abandon her wish for a penis as
impossible and to convince a male patient that a passive attitude
towards another man does not always signify castration and that in
many relations in life it is inevitable. The rebellious over-compensation
of the male produces one of the strongest transference-resistances.
A man will not be subject to a father-substitute or owe him anything
and he therefore refuses even to accept his cure from the physician.

13 “A Child is being Beaten ', Collected Papers, Vol. II.

14 * , . . in every male patient the sign that his castration-anxiety has
been mastered must be forthcoming, and this sign is a sense of equality of
rights with the analyst ; and every female patient, if her cure is to rank
as complete and permanent, must have finally conquered her masculinity-

complex and become able to submit without bitterness to thinking in
terms of her feminine rôle '. (Loc. cit. S. 8).

SIGM. FREUD 405

There is no analogous form of transference which can ensue from the
feminine wish for a penis, but it is the source of attacks of acute
depression, because our woman patients feel an inner conviction that
the analysis will avail them nothing and they will be none the better
for it. We can only agree with them when we discover that their
strongest motive in coming for treatment was the hope that they
might somehow still obtain a male organ, the lack of which is so
painful to them.

All this shows that the form of the resistance is immaterial : it
does not matter whether it belongs to the transference or not. The
vital point is that it prevents any change from taking place in the
patient’s psyche—everything remains as it was. We often feel that,
when we have reached the penis-wish and the masculine protest, we
have penetrated all the psychological strata and reached ` bedrock '
and that our task is accomplished. And this is probably correct, for
in the psychic field the biological factor is really the rock-bottom.
The repudiation of femininity must surely be a biological fact, part
of the great riddle of sex.15 Whether and when we have succeeded
in mastering this factor in an analysis is hard to determine. We
console ourselves with the certainty that everything possible has been
done to rouse the analysand to examine and to change his attitude
in this respect.

15 We must not be misled by the term ` masculine protest " into sup-
posing that what the man repudiates is passivity, or, as we may say, the
social aspect of femininity. Such a notion is speedily contradicted by the
observation that the attitude such men display towards women is often
masochistic or actually slavish. What they reject is not passivity in
general but passivity in relation to other men. That is to say, the ' mascu-
line protest ” is really simply castration-anxiety.

27