620

understanding of generalized inhibition whereby we may char-
acterize the depressive states and the most severe of these,
melancholia.

One may therefore say of inhibitions, in fine, that they repre-
sent a limitation and restriction of ego functions, either pre-
cautionary or resulting from an impoverishment of energy.
It is now easy to see wherein an inhibition differs from a symp-
tom. A symptom can no longer be described as a process taking
place either in or around the ego.

II

The general principles of neurotic symptom formation have
long been studied and have been laid down in incontestable
fashion, one may hope. Symptoms are supposed to be an indi-
cation of and substitute for an unachieved instinctual grati-
fication; they are, that is, a result of repression. Repression
proceeds from the ego, which, possibly at the command of the
superego, does not wish to be a party to an instinct cathexis
originating in the id. Through repression the ego accom-
plishes the exclusion from consciousness of the idea which was
the carrier of the unwelcome impulse. Analysis frequently
demonstrates that the idea has been retained as an unconscious
formation. So far the matter is clear enough, but presently we
encounter unsolved difficulties.

The description we have given heretofore of the process
involved in repression has expressly emphasized the result it
achieves in excluding something from consciousness, but has
left other points open to doubt. The question arises as to the
fate of the instinctual impulse generated in the id which strives
for gratification. The answer has been an indirect one; it was
to the effect that through repression the pleasure that was to
be expected in gratification was converted into unpleasure
(Unlust); whereupon one was confronted by the problem of
how unpleasure can be the result of the gratification of an
instinct. We hope we shall clarify the situation if we lay it
down definitely that in consequence of repression the excitation
arising in the id altogether fails of discharge: the ego succeeds

621

in inhibiting or deflecting it. Thus the riddle of the “trans-
formation of affect” in repression disappears. But we have
thereby conceded to the ego the ability to exert so far-reaching
an influence upon the processes taking place in the id, and have
now to learn to understand the way in which this surprising
manifestation of power becomes possible to the ego.

I believe that the ego possesses this influence by virtue of its
intimate relationship to the perceptual system, a relationship
which determines its very being and has become the basis of
its differentiation from the id. The function of this system,
which we have labelled Pcpt-Cs^*, is connected with the phe-
nomenon of consciousness; it is the recipient of stimuli not only
from without but likewise from within, and through the medium
of the sensations of pleasure and unpleasure which reach it
therefrom, it attempts to direct all psychic activity in accord-
ance with the pleasure principle. We like to conceive of the
ego as powerless against the id, but when the ego struggles
against an instinctual force in the id, it merely needs to give a
signal of distress to attain its purpose through the aid of the all
but omnipotent pleasure principle. If we consider this situa-
tion as an isolated phenomenon for a moment, we may illus-
trate it by an example from another field. In a given com-
munity a certain clique opposes a political measure, the passage
of which would accord with the wishes of the majority. This
minority then assumes control of the press, influences sovereign
“public opinion” in this way, and thus succeeds in preventing
the passage of the projected measure.

But this formulation gives rise to further questions. What
is the source of the energy which is used to create the signal of
distress? The answer is indicated by the notion that the
defense against an involuntary endopsychic process might take
place after the pattern of defense against an external stimulus—
that the ego employs the same measures of defense against an
internal as against an external danger. In the case of external
danger the organism makes an attempt at flight; it first with-
draws its libidinal cathexis from the perception of the danger;
it later learns that a more effective measure consists in carrying

^*See The Ego and the Id, chapter II.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

622

out such muscular activity as will make impossible the percep-
tion of the danger even when the danger is not denied—in other
words, it learns to withdraw from the area of danger. Repres-
sion is the equivalent of an attempt at flight of this kind. The
ego withdraws (preconscious) cathexis from the instinct repre-
sentative which is to be repressed and utilizes it in the release
of displeasure (anxiety). The problem of how anxiety arises
in repression is clearly not a simple one; but at all events one
may justifiably hold to the view that the ego is the real locus of
anxiety, and reject the earlier conception that the cathectic
energy of the repressed impulse automatically becomes con-
verted into anxiety. If I formerly so expressed myself, I was
giving a phenomenological description and not a metapsycho-
logical statement of the matter.

From the foregoing there arises the further question how it is
possible from an economic standpoint that a mere process of
withdrawal or discharge, such as in the case of the retreat of
the preconscious ego-cathexis, should give rise to displeasure
or anxiety, which according to our postulate can only be the
result of an increased cathexis. I would reply that such a
causation is not to be explained on an economic basis; anxiety
is not created de novo in repression, but is reproduced as an
affective state in accordance with a memory picture already
present. With the further question as to the origin of this
anxiety—and as to that of affects in general—we leave behind
the undisputed field of psychology, however, and enter the
borderland of physiology. Affective states are incorporated
into the life of the psyche as precipitates of primal traumatic
experiences, and are evoked in similar situations like memory
symbols. I think I was not wrong in regarding these states as
the equivalents of hysterical attacks developed later and indi-
vidually, and in considering the former as the normal proto-
types of the latter. In man and in creatures related to him
the act of birth, as the initial individual experience of anxiety,
seems to have lent characteristic features to the expression of
the affect of anxiety. We ought not to place too great value
upon this relationship, however, nor in its recognition overlook

622

out such muscular activity as will make impossible the percep-
tion of the danger even when the danger is not denied—in other
words, it learns to withdraw from the area of danger. Repres-
sion is the equivalent of an attempt at flight of this kind. The
ego withdraws (preconscious) cathexis from the instinct repre-
sentative which is to be repressed and utilizes it in the release
of displeasure (anxiety). The problem of how anxiety arises
in repression is clearly not a simple one; but at all events one
may justifiably hold to the view that the ego is the real locus of
anxiety, and reject the earlier conception that the cathectic
energy of the repressed impulse automatically becomes con-
verted into anxiety. If I formerly so expressed myself, I was
giving a phenomenological description and not a metapsycho-
logical statement of the matter.

From the foregoing there arises the further question how it is
possible from an economic standpoint that a mere process of
withdrawal or discharge, such as in the case of the retreat of
the preconscious ego-cathexis, should give rise to displeasure
or anxiety, which according to our postulate can only be the
result of an increased cathexis. I would reply that such a
causation is not to be explained on an economic basis; anxiety
is not created de novo in repression, but is reproduced as an
affective state in accordance with a memory picture already
present. With the further question as to the origin of this
anxiety—and as to that of affects in general—we leave behind
the undisputed field of psychology, however, and enter the
borderland of physiology. Affective states are incorporated
into the life of the psyche as precipitates of primal traumatic
experiences, and are evoked in similar situations like memory
symbols. I think I was not wrong in regarding these states as
the equivalents of hysterical attacks developed later and indi-
vidually, and in considering the former as the normal proto-
types of the latter. In man and in creatures related to him
the act of birth, as the initial individual experience of anxiety,
seems to have lent characteristic features to the expression of
the affect of anxiety. We ought not to place too great value
upon this relationship, however, nor in its recognition overlook

624

mation as to how this happens. We learn something about it
only from the cases in which repression is more or less unsuc-
cessful. Then it appears, in general, that the instinctual
impulse, despite repression, has found a substitute satisfaction,
but one which is greatly crippled, displaced, or inhibited. It
is not even any longer recognizable as a gratification. If a
substitute satisfaction is achieved, pleasure is not experienced,
but instead, the achieving of this substitute satisfaction has
acquired the character of a compulsion. But in the degrada-
tion of the process of gratification to the status of a symptom,
repression manifests its power in still another respect. When-
ever possible, the substitutive process is kept from being carried
out by the motor apparatus; and when this does not succeed,
it must use itself up in an alteration of the subject’s own body,
without encroachment upon the environment; it is not per-
mitted to be transformed into action. As I understand it, in
repression the ego functions under the influence of external
reality and therefore excludes the result of the substitutive
process from this reality.

The ego controls the entrance into consciousness as well as
the passage into activity directed to the environment; in repres-
sion it exerts its power at both places. The instinct repre-
sentative experiences the one, the instinctual impulse itself the
other, side of the ego’s manifestation of authority. So it
becomes pertinent to ask how this appreciation of the might of
the ego harmonizes with the description which we outlined in
The Ego and the Id of the position occupied by this same ego.
We there described the dependence of the ego upon the id as
well as upon the superego, and unmasked its impotence and
apprehensiveness towards both, and also the superiority which
it maintains so arduously. This point of view has since pro-
duced a number of reverberations in psychoanalytic literature.
Many opinions have forcibly emphasized the weakness of the
ego in relation to the id, of the rational against the demonic
in us, and are on the point of making this pronouncement into
a pillar of a psychoanalytic Weltanschauung. But ought not
insight into the modus operandi of repression to restrain the

625

analyst, of all persons, from such an extreme of partisanship?
I am not at all in favor of elaborating Weltanschauungen.
Let that be left to the philosophers, who avowedly do not find
the journey of life practicable without a Baedeker of this kind,
which supplies information about everything. Let us accept
with all humility the disdain with which the philosophers look
down upon us from the vantage point of their more elevated
indigence. Since we too cannot disown our narcissistic pride,
we will seek consolation in the consideration that all these
“guides to life” quickly become obsolete, that it is precisely
our shortsightedly circumscribed efforts which make new
editions of them necessary, and that even the most up-to-
date of these Baedekers are attempts to take the place of the old
Catechism, so handy and so complete. We know full well how
little light science has been able to throw upon the riddles of
this world; all the bombinations of the philosophers cannot
alter that fact, but only patient and unremitting work, which
subordinates everything to the single demand for certitude,
can at long last bring about a change in this respect. When
the wayfarer whistles in the dark, he may be disavowing his
timidity, but he does not see any the more clearly for doing so.

Translated by HENRY ALDEN BUNKER