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make life’s journey practicable without such a Baedeker, which gives
information about all things. Let us humbly take upon ourselves
the contumely with which the philosophers look down upon us from
the standpoint of their indigence. Since we, too, cannot deny our
narcisstic pride, we will seek our comfort in the venture that all of
these life pilots soon age, that it is just our shortsighted restricted
work in miniature which makes necessary their new editions, and
that even the most modern of these Baedekers are essays to replace
old catechism, so convenient and complete. We know exactly how
little light science has hitherto diffused over the riddle of this world;
all the noise of the philosophers’ can change nothing, only a patient
continuation of the work which subordinates everything to one de-
mand for certainty, can effect slowly the transformation. If the
wanderer sings in the dark, he denies his anxiety but this does not
make him see more clearly.

III

To return to the problem of the ego: the appearance of contra-
diction is due to the fact that we take abstractions too rigidly and out
of a complicated state of affairs look at first one, then another side
alone. The separation of the ego from the It seems justified. It is
forced on us by definite conditions. But on the other hand, the ego
and It are identical, the ego is only a differentiated part of the same
It. If in thought we place this fragment against the whole, or if there
is a true dissension between the two, the weakness of this ego is
manifest. But if the ego remains bound to the It and cannot be
divided from it, its strength is manifest. The relation between the
ego and super-ego is similar; in many situations the two flow to-
gether; mostly we can only distinguish between them when there is
tension, a conflict, between them. For the case of repression this
fact will be decisive, that the ego is an organization, the It is not.
The ego is the organized part of the It. It would be quite unjustified
if one should imagine that the ego and It are two unlike camps of
warriors; in repression the ego seeks to repress a fragment of the It,
but the remainder of the It comes to the rescue and measures its
strength with that of the ego. This may often happen although it
is certainly not the initial situation of repression; as a rule the
instinct to be repressed is isolated. If the act of repression has
shown us the strength of the ego, it bears witness of its weak-
ness and for the fact that the individual instincts of the It cannot
be influenced. For the process which has become a symptom through
repression maintains its existence outside of the ego organization

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and independently of it. And not only this alone but all of its off-
shoots enjoy the same right, one may say the extraterritoriality. And
where it comes together associatively with the portions of the ego
organization, it may be asked whether these did not draw it to
themselves and gain ground with this addition at the expense of the
ego. A comparison long a favorite with us regards the symptom as
a foreign body which ceaselessly maintains phenomena of irritation
and reaction in the tissues in which it has embedded itself. It does
indeed happen that the defensive battle against the unpleasant
instinct is shut off through the symptom formation; as far as we
can see this is possible in hysterical conversion, but usually the course
is different–after the first act of repression there follows a tedious
or never ending after-play; the fight against the instinct finds its
continuation in the fight against the symptom.

This secondary defensive fight shows us two faces with contra-
dictory expressions. On one hand the ego is notified through its
nature to undertake something which we must estimate as an attempt
at restoration or expiation. The ego is an organization, it rests upon
free intercourse and the possibility of reciprocally influencing among
all of its components. Its desexualized energy announces its origin
in the effort towards union and unification and this urge to synthesis
always increases with the strength which the ego develops. It there-
fore becomes intelligible that the ego also tries to abolish the strange-
ness and isolation of the symptom, using for this purpose all possi-
bilities to bind it to itself and by such bands to incorporate it into its
organization. We know that such an effort already influences the
act to symptom formation. A classical example thereof is furnished
by those hysterical symptoms which become transparent to us as a
compromise between the requirement for gratification and the re-
quirement for punishment. As fulfillment of a demand of the
super-ego such symptoms have from the first a part in the ego while
on the other hand they indicate positions of the repressed and breaches
in the ego organization; they are, so to speak, border stations with
mixed investments. Whether all primary hysterical symptoms are so
constructed demands careful investigation. In further course the ego
so behaves as if conducted by deliberation. The symptom is once
there and cannot be removed. It must make friends with the situ-
ation and draw the greatest amount of benefit from it. An adapta-
tion takes place with the ego-foreign fragment of the inner world
which is represented through the symptom, as otherwise normally the
ego brings to pass in the real outer world. There is never a lack of
occasions. The existence of symptoms may bring with itself a cer-
tain inhibition of function with which one may soothe a demand of

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the super-ego or refuse a claim of the external world. The symptom
is gradually entrusted with the representation of more important
interests, it receives a value for self assertion, adheres more inti-
mately to the ego and becomes more indispensable to it. Only in
quite rare cases can the process be likened to the presence of a
foreign body after a wound has healed. One may also exaggerate
the importance of this secondary adaptation to the symptom in
saying that the ego has created the symptom in order to derive benefit
from it. This is just as true or false as when one presents the
opinion that war-injured soldiers have allowed their legs to be shot
off in order to live without work on their invalid pensions.

Other symptom formations, such as compulsion neurosis and para-
noia, gain a high value for the ego, not because they are of advantage
to it but because they bring a narcistic gratification which is indis-
pensable. The system formations of the compulsive neurotic flatter
his self love through the delusion that he is specially pure and con-
scientious and is better than other human beings. The delusional
formations of paranoia open to the acumen and phantasy of these
patients a field of activity which is not readily replaced. From all of
these mentioned relations there results what is known as the (sec-
ondary) disease gain of the neurosis. There ensues the effort of
the ego to incorporate the symptom into itself and strengthen the
fixation of the latter. If we then make the attempt to furnish aid
of analysis to the ego in its fight against the symptom, we find that
these placable connections between the ego and symptom efficacious
on the part of the resistance. It is not made easy for us to solve
these. Both procedures which the ego applies against the symptom
stand actually in opposition to each other.

The other procedure has a less friendly aspect and continues the
direction of the repression. It seems, however, that we should not
burden the ego with the reproach of futility. The ego is ready to be
peaceable and would like to incorporate the symptom and take it into
its ensemble. The disturbance proceeds from the symptom, which is
the proper substitute and derivative of the repressed prompting.
The latter rôle is played further, in that the urge for gratification is
constantly renewed and so prompts the ego to again give the pain
signal and come to its defense. The secondary defensive fight
against the symptom is many sided and plays itself on different stages,
serving itself with manifold means. We will state little if we do not
take the individual cases of symptom formation as an object of
investigation. By so doing we shall find occasion to go into the prob-
lem of anxiety which we have long spied lurking in the background.
It would seem desirable to start out with the symptoms created by the

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hysterical neuroses, for we are not yet prepared for the presupposi-
tions of symptom formation in the compulsive neuroses, paranoia,
and other neuroses.

IV

Our first consideration will be that of infantile hysterical animal
fear; for example, the typical case of horse fear of the five year old
“ Little Hans ” (in Volume VIII of my collected papers published in
German). Even the first glimpse allows us to recognize that the
relations of a genuine case of neurotic disease are much more compli-
cated than would be anticipated in our imagination as long as we
work with abstractions. Some work must be devoted to orientation–
which suppressed prompting, what symptom equivalent, what motive
for suppression becomes recognizable.

The boy refused to go out in the street because of his fear of
horses. This is the raw material. What is the symptom? Develop-
ment of anxiety, selection of a feared object, renunciation of free
mobility, or several such in combination? What gratification is
given up? Why must he go without it? The case is not enigmatical.
The incomprehensible fear of the horse is a symptom of incapacity
for walking in the street, a phenomenon of inhibition, a limitation
which is enjoined on the ego in order not to awaken the fear symp-
tom. One sees straightway the correctness of the explanation of the
last point and will leave this inhibition out of consideration in further
discussion. But the first fugacious acquaintance with the case does
not teach us to recognize the actual expression of the suppositious
symptoms. As shown by further inquiry it had to do not with an
indefinite fear of a horse, but a definite anxious expectation that the
horse would bite him. It is true that this content sought to withdraw
itself from consciousness and to replace it with an indefinite phobia
in which only the fear and the object remain. Is this content the
nucleus of the symptom?

We get no further so long as we do not draw the entire psychic
situation of the child into consideration as is revealed with analytical
work in general. In the Oedipus situation to the father we find
jealousy and enmity although the boy loved him heartily aside from
conditions in which the mother came into consideration. In
other words there was an ambivalence conflict–well founded love
with not less justified hate, both directed against the same person.
His phobia must result from an effort to solve this conflict. Such
ambivalence conflicts are very common and we know another typical
ending. In this one of the two instincts which strive together,