1910 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 11

symptoms originated in peculiar mental states,
which he called ` hypnoidal states’. ... Later I
shall at least suggest what other influences and
processes have been disclosed besides that of the
hypnoidal states, to which Breuer limited the causal
factor.

You have probably also felt, and rightly, that
Breuer’s investigations gave you only a very incom-
plete theory and insufficient explanation of the
phenomena which we have observed. But complete
theories do not fall from Heaven, and you would
have had still greater reason to be distrustful had
anyone offered you at the beginning of his observa-
tions a well-rounded theory, without any gaps; such
a theory could only be the child of his speculations
and not the fruit of an unprejudiced investigation of
the facts.

Second Lecture. ... The great French observer
[Charcot], whose student I was during the years
1885-6, had no natural bent for creating psychological
theories. His student, P. Janet, was the first to
attempt to penetrate more deeply into the psychic
processes of hysteria, and we followed his example
when we made the mental splitting and the dissocia-
tion of personality the central points of our theory.
Janet propounds a theory of hysteria which draws
upon the principal theories of heredity and degenera-
tion which are current in France. According to his
view hysteria is a form of degenerative alteration of
the nervous system, manifesting itself in a congenital
“weakness ” of the function of psychic synthesis. . . .

When I undertook to continue on my own account
the investigations begun by Breuer I soon came to
another view of the origin of hysterical dissociation
(or splitting of consciousness). . . . The cathartic

12 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 1910

treatment, as Breuer had made use of it, presupposed
that the patient should be put in deep hypnosis, for
only in hypnosis was available the knowledge of his
pathogenic associations, which were unknown to him
in his normal state. Now hypnosis, as a fanciful, and
so to speak, mystical, aid, I soon came to dislike; and
when I discovered that, in spite of all my efforts, I
could not hypnotize by any means all of my patients,
I resolved to give up hypnotism and to make the
cathartic method independent of it.

Since I could not alter the psychic state of most of
my patients at my wish, I directed my efforts to
working with them in their normal state. This seems
at first sight to be a particularly senseless and aimless
undertaking. The problem was this: to find out
something from the patient that the doctor did not
know and the patient himself did not know. How
could one hope to make such a method succeed ?
The memory of a very noteworthy and instructive
proceeding came to my aid, which I had seen in
Bernheim’s clinic at Nancy. Bernheim showed us
that persons put in a condition of hypnotic somnam-
bulism, and subjected to all sorts of experiences, had
only apparently lost the memory of those somnam-
bulic experiences, and that their memory of them
could be awakened even in the normal state. If he
asked them about their experiences during somnam-
bulism, they said at first that they did not remember,
but if he persisted, urged, assured them that they did
know, then every time the forgotten memory came
back.

Accordingly I did this with my patients. When I
had reached in my procedure with them a point at
which they declared that they knew nothing more, I
would assure them that they did know, that they

1910 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 13

must just tell it out, and I would venture the assertion
that the memory which would emerge at the moment
that I laid my hand on the patient’s forehead would
be the right one. In this way I succeeded, without
hypnosis, in learning from the patient all that was
necessary for a construction of the connection
between the forgotten pathogenic scenes and the
symptoms which they had left behind. This was a
troublesome and in its length an exhausting pro-
ceeding, and did not lend itself to a finished tech-
nique. But I did not give it up without drawing
definite conclusions from the data which I had gained.
I had substantiated the fact that the forgotten
memories were not lost. They were in the possession
of the patient, ready to emerge and form associations
with his other mental content, but hindered from
becoming conscious, and forced to remain in the
unconscious by some sort of a force. The existence
of this force could be assumed with certainty, for in
attempting to drag up the unconscious memories into
the consciousness of the patient, in opposition to this
force, one got the sensation of his own personal effort
striving to overcome it. One could get an idea of this
force, which maintained the pathological situation,
from the resistance of the patient.

It is on this idea of resistance that I based
my theory of the psychic processes of hystericals. It
had been found that in order to cure the patient it
was necessary that this force should be overcome.
Now with the mechanism of the cure as a starting-
point, quite a definite theory could be constructed.
These same forces, which in the present situation as
resistances opposed the emergence of the forgotten
ideas into consciousness, must themselves have caused
the forgetting, and repressed from consciousness the

14 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 1910

pathogenic experiences. I called this hypothetical
process ‘repression’, and considered that it was
proved by the undeniable existence of resistance.

But now the question arose: What were those
forces, and what were the conditions of this repres-
sion, in which we were now able to recognize the
pathogenic mechanism of hysteria ? A comparative
study of the pathogenic situations, which the cathar-
tic treatment has made possible, allows us to answer
this question. In all those experiences, it had hap-
pened that a wish had been aroused, which was in
sharp opposition to the other desires of the individual,
and was not capable of being reconciled with the
ethical, æsthetic and personal pretensions of the
patient’s personality. There had been a short con-
flict, and the end of this inner struggle was the
repression of the idea which presented itself to
consciousness as the bearer of this irreconcilable wish.
This was, then, repressed from consciousness and for-
gotten. The incompatibility of the idea in question
with the * ego” of the patient was the motive of the
repression, the ethical and other pretensions of the
individual were the repressing forces. The presence
of the incompatible wish, or the duration of the con-
flict, had given rise to a high degree of mental pain;
this pain was avoided by the repression. This latter
process is evidently in such a case a device for the
protection of the personality.

I will not multiply examples, but will give you the
history of a single one of my cases, in which the con-
ditions and the utility of the repression process stand
out clearly enough. Of course for my purpose I must
abridge the history of the case and omit many
valuable theoretical considerations. It is that of a
young girl who was deeply attached to her father, who

1910 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 15

had died a short time before, and in whose care she
had shared—a situation analogous to that of Breuer’s
patient. When her older sister married, the girl
grew to feel a peculiar sympathy for her new brother-
in-law, which easily passed with her for family
tenderness. This sister soon fell ill and died, while
the patient and her mother were away. The absent
ones were hastily recalled, without being told fully
of the painful situation. As the girl stood by the
bedside of her dead sister, for one short moment
there surged up in her mind an idea, which might be
framed in these words: * Now he is free and can
marry me’. We may be sure that this idea, which
betrayed to her consciousness her intense love for
her brother-in-law, of which she had not been
conscious, was the next moment consigned to repres-
sion by her revolted feelings. The girl fell ill with
severe hysterical symptoms, and, when I came to
treat the case, it appeared that she had entirely for-
gotten that scene at her sister’s bedside and the
unnatural, egoistic desire which had arisen in her.
She remembered it during the treatment, reproduced
the pathogenic moment with every sign of intense
emotional excitement, and was cured by this
treatment... よ

The difference between our theory and that of
Janet [is that we] do not derive the psychic fission
from a congenital lack of capacity on the part
of the mental apparatus to synthesize its experiences,
but we explain it dynamically by the conflict of
opposing mental forces, we recognize in it the result
of an active striving of each mental complex against
the other.

1 This case has been translated by Dr. Brill in Selected
papers on hysteria.

16 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 1910

New questions at once arise in great number from
our theory. The situation of psychic conflict is a very
frequent one; an attempt of the ego to defend itself
from painful memories can be observed everywhere,
and yet the result is not a mental fission. We cannot
avoid the assumption that still other conditions are
necessary, if the conflict is to result in dissociation.
I willingly concede that with the assumption of
* repression " we stand, not at the end, but at the very
beginning of a psychological theory. But we can
advance only one step at a time, and the completion
of our knowledge must await further and more
thorough work. ...

We come to the conclusion, from working with
hysterical patients and other neurotics, that they
have not fully succeeded in repressing the idea to
which the incompatible wish is attached. They
have, indeed, driven it out of consciousness and out of
memory, and apparently saved themselves a great
amount of psychic pain, but in the unconscious the
suppressed wish still exists, only waiting for its chance to
become active, and finally succeeds in sending into
consciousness, instead of the repressed idea, a dis-
guised and unrecognizable surrogate-creation, to
which the same painful sensations associate them-
selves that the patient thought he was rid of through
his repression. This surrogate of the suppressed idea
—the symptom—is secure against further attacks
from the defences of the ego, and instead of a short
conflict there originates now a permanent suffering.
We can observe in the symptom, besides the tokens
of its disguise, a remnant of traceable similarity with
the originally repressed idea; the way in which the
surrogate is built up can be discovered during the
psycho-analytic treatment of the patient, and for his

1910 THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 17

cure the symptom must be traced back over the same
route to the repressed idea. If this repressed material
is once more made part of the conscious mental
functions—a process which supposes the overcoming
of considerable resistance—the psychic conflict
which then arises, the same which the patient wished
to avoid, is made capable of a happier termination,
under the guidance of the physician, than is offered
by repression. There are several possible suitable
decisions which can bring conflict and neurosis to a
happy end; in particular cases the attempt may be
made to combine several of these. Either the per-
sonality of the patient may be convinced that he has
been wrong in rejecting the pathogenic wish, and he
may be made to accept it either wholly or in part;
or this wish may itself be directed to a higher goal
which is free from objection, by what is called
sublimation; or the rejection may be recognized as
rightly motivated, and the automatic and therefore
insufficient mechanism of repression be reinforced
by the higher, more characteristically human mental
faculties; one succeeds in mastering his wishes by
conscious thought.

Forgive me if I have not been able to present more
clearly these main points of the treatment which is
to-day known as “ psycho-analysis ". The difficulties
do not lie merely in the newness of the subject.

Regarding the nature of the unacceptable wishes,
which succeed in making their influence felt out of
the unconscious, in spite of repression; and regarding
the question of what subjective and constitutional
factors must be present for such a failure of repression
and such a surrogate or symptom creation to take
place, we will speak in later remarks.

Third Lecture. , . . In the patients whom I treated