Freud, Sigmund (1911-001/1937.en): Formulations regarding the two principles in mental functioning

FORMULATIONS REGARDING THE TWO
PRINCIPLES IN MENTAL FUNCTIONING!

(1911)

We have long observed that every neurosis has the
result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing
the patient out of real life, of alienating him from
actuality. Nor could a fact such as this escape the
observation of Pierre Janet; he spoke of a loss of “ la
fonction du réel ” as being a special characteristic of the
neurotic, but without discovering the connection of
this disturbance with the fundamental conditions of
neurosis. By introducing the concept of repression
into the genesis of the neuroses we have been able to
gain some insight into this connection. The neurotic
turns away from reality because he finds it unbear-
able—either the whole or parts of it. The most
extreme type of this alienation from reality is shown
in certain cases of hallucinatory psychosis which aim
at denying the existence of the particular event that
occasioned the outbreak of insanity. But actually
every neurotic does the samé with some fragment of
reality. And now we are confronted with the task of
investigating the development of the relation of the
neurotic and of mankind in general to reality, and of
so bringing the psychological significance of the real
outer world into the structure of our theory.

In the psychology which is founded on psycho-
analysis we have accustomed ourselves to take as our
starting-point the unconscious mental processes, with
the peculiarities of which we have become acquainted

17). f. Ps.-An. iii, 1-8; G.S. 0, 409-417; S.k.S.N. dii,
271-279 ; С.Р. iv, 13-21. Trans. by M. N. Searl, revised
by Joan Riviere.

45

46 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 1911

through analysis. These we consider to be the older,
primary processes, the residues of a phase of develop-
ment in which they were the only kind of mental
processes. The sovereign tendency obeyed by these
primary processes is easy of recognition; it is called
the pleasure-pain (Lust-Unlust) principle, or more
shortly the pleasure-principle. These processes strive
towards gaining pleasure; from any operation which
might arouse unpleasantness ( pain “) mental activity
draws back (repression). Our nocturnal dreams, our
waking tendency to shut out painful impressions, are
remnants of the supremacy of this principle and
proofs of its power.

In presupposing that the state of mental equili-
brium was originally disturbed by the peremptory
demands of inner needs, I am returning to lines of
thought which I have developed in another place."
In the situation I am considering, whatever was
thought of (desired) was simply imagined in an
hallucinatory form, as still happens to-day with our
dream-thoughts every night.” This attempt at
satisfaction by means of hallucination was abandoned
only in consequence of the absence of the expected
gratification, because of the disappointment ex-
perienced. Instead, the mental apparatus had to
decide to form a conception of the real circum-
stances in the outer world and to exert itself to alter
them. A new principle of mental functioning was
thus introduced; what was conceived of was no
longer that which was pleasant, but that which was

1 The General Section of The Interpretation of Dreams.

2 The state of sleep can recover the likeness of mental
life as it was before the recognition of reality, because a
prerequisite of sleep is a deliberate rejection of reality
(the wish to sleep).

1911 MENTAL FUNGTIONING 47

real, even if it should be unpleasant.! This institution
of the reality-principle proved a momentous step.

1. In the first place the new demands made a
succession of adaptations necessary in the mental
apparatus, which, on account of insufficient or un-
certain knowledge, we can only detail very cursorily.

The increased significance of external reality
heightened the significance also of the sense-organs
directed towards that outer world, and of the
consciousness attached to them; the latter now learned
to comprehend the qualities of sense in addition to
the qualities of pleasure and * pain? which hitherto
had alone been of interest to it. A special function
was instituted which had periodically to search the
outer world in order that its data might be already
familiar if an urgent inner need should arise; this
function was attention. Its activity meets the sense-

1] will attempt to amplify the above schematic
presentation with some further details. It will rightly be
objected that an organization which is a slave to the
pleasure-principle and neglects the reality of the outer
world could not maintain itself alive for the shortest time,
so that it could not have come into being at all. The use
of a fiction of this kind is, however, vindicated by the
consideration that the infant, if one only includes the
maternal care, does almost realize such a state of mental
life. Probably it hallucinates the fulfilment of its inner
needs; it betrays its * pain ? due to increase of stimulation
and delay of satisfaction by the motor discharge of
crying and struggling and then experiences the halluci-
nated satisfaction. Later, as a child, it learns to employ
intentionally these modes of discharge as means of
expression. Since the care of the infant is the prototype
of the later care of the child, the supremacy of the
pleasure-principle can end in actuality only with com-
plete mental detachment from the parents.

48 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 1911

impressions half-way, instead of awaiting their
appearance. At the same time there was probably
introduced a system of notation, whose task was to
deposit the results of this periodical activity of
consciousness—a part of that which we call memory.

In place of repression, which excluded from
cathexis as productive of ‘pain’ some of the
energing ideas, there developed an impartial passing
of judgment, which had to decide whether a particular
idea was true or false, that is, was in agreement with
reality or not; decision was determined by com-
parison with the memory-traces of reality.

A new function was now entrusted to motor dis-
charge, which under the supremacy of the pleasure-
principle had served to unburden the mental appara-
tus of accretions of stimuli, and in carrying out this
task had sent innervations into the interior of the
body (mien, expressions of affect); it was now
employed in the appropriate alteration of reality.
It was converted into action.

Restraint of motor discharge (of action) had now
become necessary, and was provided by means of the
process of thought, which was developed from ideation.
Thought was endowed with qualities which made it
possible for the mental apparatus to support increased
tension during a delay in the process of discharge.
It is essentially an experimental way of acting,
accompanied by displacement of smaller quantities of
cathexis together with less expenditure (discharge) of
them. For this purpose conversion of free cathexis
into * bound “ cathexes was imperative, and this was
brought about by means of raising the level of the
whole cathectic process. It is probable that thinking
was originally unconscious, in so far as it rose above
mere ideation and turned to the relations between

1911 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 49

the object-impressions, and that it became endowed
with further qualities which were perceptible to
consciousness only through its connection with the
memory-traces of words.

2. There is a general tendency of our mental
apparatus which we can trace back to the economic
principle of saving in expenditure ; it seems to find
expression in the tenacity with which we hold on to
the sources of pleasure at our disposal, and in the
difficulty with which we renounce them. With the
introduction of the reality-principle one mode of
thought-activity was split off; it was kept free from
reality-testing and remained subordinated to the
pleasure-principle alone.! This is the act of phantasy-
making, which begins already in the games of children,
and later, continued as day-dreaming, abandons its
dependence on real objects.

3. The supersession of the pleasure-principle by the
reality-principle with all the mental consequences of
this, which is here schematically condensed in a single
sentence, is not in reality accomplished all at once ; nor
does it take place simultaneously along the whole line.
For while this development is going on in the ego-
instincts, the sexual instincts become detached from
them in very significant ways. The sexual instincts
at first behave auto-erotically; they find their
satisfaction in the child’s own body and therefore do
not come into the situation of frustration which
enforces the installation of the reality-principle.
Then when later on they begin to find an object, this
development undergoes a long interruption in the

1 Just as a nation whose wealth rests on the exploitation
of its land yet reserves certain territory to be preserved
in its original state and protected from cultural altera-
tions, e.g. Yellowstone Park.

50 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 1911

latency period, which postpones sexual development
until puberty. These two factors—auto-erotism and
latency period—bring about the result that the mental
development of the sexual instincts is delayed and
remains far longer under the supremacy of the
pleasure-principle, from which in many people it is
never able to withdraw itself at all.

In consequence of these conditions there arises a
closer connection, on the one hand, between the
sexual instincts and phantasy and, on the other hand,
between the ego-instincts and the activities of con-
sciousness. Both in healthy and in neurotic people
this connection strikes us as very intimate, although
the considerations of genetic psychology put forward
above lead us to recognize it as secondary. The per-
petuated activity of auto-erotism makes possible a
long retention of the easier momentary and phan-
tastic satisfaction in regard to the sexual object, in
place of real satisfaction in regard to it, the latter
requiring effort and delay. In the realm of phantasy,
repression remains all-powerful; it brings about the
inhibition of ideas in statu nascendi before they can be
consciously noticed, should cathexis of them be
likely to occasion the release of “ pain”. This is the
weak place of our mental organization, which can
be utilized to bring back under the supremacy of the
pleasure-principle thought-processes which had
already become rational. An essential part of the
mental predisposition to neurosis thus lies in the
delayed training of the sexual instincts in the
observance of reality and, further, in the conditions
which make this delay possible.

4. Just as the pleasure-ego can do nothing but
wish, work towards gaining pleasure and avoiding
* pain ”, so the reality-ego need do nothing but strive

1911 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 51

for what is useful and guard itself against damage.
Actually, the substitution of the reality-principle for
the pleasure-principle denotes no dethronement of
the pleasure-principle, but only a safeguarding of it.
A momentary pleasure, uncertain in its results, is
given up, but only in order to gain in the new way an
assured pleasure coming later. But the endopsychic
impression made by this substitution has been so
powerful that it is mirrored in a special religious
myth. The doctrine of reward in a future life for the
—voluntary or enforced—renunciation of earthly
lusts is nothing but a mythical projection of this
revolution in the mind. In logical pursuit of this
prototype, religions have been able to effect absolute
renunciation of pleasure in this life by means of the
promise of compensation in a future life; they have
not, however, achieved a conquest of the pleasure-
principle in this way. It is science which comes
nearest to succeeding in this conquest; science,
however, also offers intellectual pleasure during its
work and promises practical gain at the end.

5. Education can without further hesitation be
described as an incitement to the conquest of the
pleasure-principle, and to its replacement by the
reality-principle; it offers its aid, that is, to that
process of development which concerns the ego; to
this end it makes use of rewards of love from those in
charge, and thus it fails if the spoilt child thinks it will
possess this love whatever happens and can in no
circumstances lose it.

1 The superiority of the reality-ego over the pleasure-
ego is aptly expressed by Bernard Shaw in these words:
‘То be able to choose the line of greatest advantage
instead of yielding in the direction of least resistance.”
(Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy.)

52 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 1911

6. Art brings about a reconciliation of the two
principles in a peculiar way. The artist is originally a
man who turns from reality because he cannot come
to terms with the demand for the renunciation of
instinctual satisfaction as it is first made, and who
then in phantasy-life allows full play to his erotic and
ambitious wishes. But he finds a way of return from
this world of phantasy back to reality; with his
special gifts he moulds his phantasies into a new kind
of reality, and men concede them a justification as
valuable reflections of actual life. Thus by a certain
path he actually becomes the hero, king, creator,
favourite he desired to be, without pursuing the
circuitous path of creating real alterations in the
outer world. But this he can only attain because
other men feel the same dissatisfaction as he with the
renunciation demanded by reality, and because this
dissatisfaction, resulting from the displacement of
the pleasure-principle by the reality-principle, is
itself a part of reality.

7. While the ego goes through its transformation
from a pleasure-ego into a reality-ego, the sexual
instincts undergo the changes that lead them from
their original auto-erotism through various inter-
mediate phases to object-love in the service of pro-
creation. 11 16 is correct that every step of these two
processes of development may become the seat of a
predisposition to later neurotic illness, it seems to
follow that the decision as regards the form of the
subsequent illness (election of neurosis) will depend
on the particular phase of ego-development and
libido-development in which the inhibition of
development has occurred. The chronological

1 Cf. the similar position taken by Otto Rank in Der
Kiinstler, 1907.

1911 MENTAL FUNCTIONING 53

characteristics of the two developments, as yet
unstudied, their possible variations in speed with
respect to each other, thus receive unexpected
significance.

8. There is a most surprising characteristic of un-
conscious (repressed) processes to which every
investigator accustoms himself only by exercising
great self-control; it results from their entire dis-
regard of the reality-test; thought-reality is placed
on an equality with external actuality, wishes with
fulfilment and occurrence, just as happens without
more ado under the supremacy of the old pleasure-
principle. Hence also the difficulty of distinguishing
unconscious phantasies from memories which have
become unconscious. One must, however, never
allow oneself to be misled into applying to the
repressed creations of the mind the standards of
reality; this might result in symptom-formation on
the ground that they are not actualities; or in
deriving a neurotic sense of guilt from another
source because there is no proof of actual committal
of any crime. One is bound to employ the currency
that prevails in the country one is exploring; in our
case it is the neurotic currency. . . .

The deficiencies of this short paper, which is rather
introductory than expository, are perhaps only to a
slight extent excused if I acknowledge them to be
unavoidable. In the meagre sentences on the mental
consequences of adaptation to the reality-principle I
was obliged to intimate opinions which I should have
preferred to withhold, the vindication of which will
certainly require no small exertion. But I hope that
benevolent readers will not fail to observe how even
in this work the sway of the reality-principle is
beginning.