485

which knows itself to be blameless, must feel a sense of guilt and
bear a responsibility which it knows not how to explain. The riddle
herewith given to us is, however, not so great as it at first seems.
The behavior of the super-ego is intelligible throughout, the contra-
diction in the ego shows us only that it has, by means of repression,
closed itself against the It while it remains accessible to the influence
of the super-ego.^* The further question, why the ego does not
seek to withdraw from the tormenting criticism of the super-ego,
disposes of the fact that this really does happen in a large series
of cases. There are compulsive neuroses entirely without sense of
guilt; as far as we understand, the ego has spared itself the percep-
tion of the same through a new series of symptoms, expiations and
restrictions to self-punishment. These symptoms signify, however,
simultaneous gratifications of masochistic promptings which have
likewise drawn strength through regression.

The manifold phenomena of compulsive neurosis are so great that
even by much effort we have failed to give a coherent synthesis of
all their variations. We have striven to make prominent the typical
relations, always with the concern to survey irregularities of no
less importance.

I have already described the general tendency of symptom forma-
tion in compulsive neuroses. It is to procure more room for substi-
tute-gratifications at the expense of renunciation. The same symp-
toms which indicate the original limitations of the ego assume later–
thanks to the indication of the ego to synthesis–those of gratification,
and it is obvious that the last significance gradually becomes the
more practicable. An extremely restricted ego which has shown
that its gratifications are sought in the symptoms becomes the result
of these processes, which approaches more and more the complete
failure of the initial defensive striving. The displacement of the
relations of the energy in favor of gratification can lead to the dreaded
end of paralysis of will on the part of the ego, which for each deci-
sion finds almost as strong an impulse on one side as on the other.
The hyper-acute conflict between the it and the super-ego which domi-
nates the affection at the beginning and after may so spread itself
that none of the arrangements of the ego, incapable of communica-
tion, can avoid being drawn into this conflict.

VI

During this conflict one may observe two symptom-forming activi-
ties of the ego which deserve particular interest because they are

^*Compare Reik, Impulse to Confess and Punishment Need, 1925.

486

evidently substitutes for repression and therefore their technic
and tendency can already be elucidated. Perhaps we should also
understand this auxiliary and substitute technic as a proof that the
carrying through of correct suppression will meet with difficulties.
If we consider that in compulsive neuroses the ego is so much more
the scene of symptom formation than in hysteria; that this ego holds
fast tenaciously to its relationship to reality and consciousness and
thereby summons all of its intellectual resources; and that the
thought activity seems overfixed and erotised, such variations of
suppression are perhaps brought nearer.

The two suggested technics are the undoing and the isola-
tion. The former has a large field of application and extends far
back. It is negative magic, so to speak; it does not will the conse-
quences of an event (impression, experience) through motor sym-
bolism but itself “blows this away.” With the choice of this last
expression it is indicated what rôle this technic plays not only in
the neurosis, but also in magic actions, folk customs and religious
ceremonials. In the compulsion neurosis one encounters the un-
doing first in the two-stage symptoms where the second action
abolishes the first as if it had not happened, where in reality both
stages occurred. The compulsive-neurotic ceremonial has its sec-
ond root in the intention of the undoing. The first is the preven-
tion, the foresight that something definite shall not happen, not
repeat itself. This distinction is easy to grasp; the precautionary
measures are rational, the abolitions through undoing are irra-
tional, magical in nature. Naturally one must suppose that this
second root is the older, originating in the animistic situation to
the external world. Its shading into the normal finds the attempt
at undoing in the resolution to treat an event as if it had not yet
happened, but then one undertakes nothing against it or bothers
either with the event or its consequences; while in the neurosis one
even abolishes the past and seeks to repress motivistically. The same
tendency may also give the explanation of the so frequent compul-
sion to repetition in the neurosis, in the execution of which many
intentions are found together which reciprocally antagonize one
another. What does not happen in this fashion, as it should have
happened in accord with the wish, is made undone in another way
through repetition, where all the motives appear to tarry in these
repetitions. In the further course of the neurosis the tendency is
often unveiled to make a traumatic experience undone, as a symptom-
forming motive of the first rank. We receive so unexpected a glimpse
into a new motor technic of defense, or as we might say with a little
inexactness, of repression.

487

The other sort of new technic to be described is that of isolation
which is peculiar to compulsive neuroses. It is likewise in relation
to the motor sphere and consists as follows: after an unpleasant
event and also after any personal activity significant in the sense
of a neurosis, a pause is interpolated in which nothing is to happen,
no perception made nor action carried out. This at first strange
behavior soon betrays to us its relation to repression. We know
that it is possible in hysteria to allow a traumatic impression to fall
into amnesia. In compulsive neurosis this does not often succeed;
the experience is not forgotten but is laid bare by its affect and its
associative relations are repressed or interrupted; so that it stands
as if isolated and is not reproduced in the course of thought activity.
The effect of this isolation is the same as in repression with
amnesia. This technic is therefore reproduced in the isolation of
compulsive neurosis but is also strengthened motor wise in the magic
intention. What is thus held apart is exactly that which associa-
tively belongs to it, the motor isolation is to give a guarantee for
the interruption of the connection in thought. A pretext for this
procedure of the neurosis is given by the normal process of concen-
tration. What seems significant to us as an impression, as a task,
is not to be disturbed through the simultaneous claims of other
thought achievements or activities. But even in the normal the con-
centration is applied not only to the indifferent and not pertinent
but before all to hold aloof the unsuitable opposite. As the most
disturbing is felt what had originally belonged to it but had been
torn asunder in the development of progress—for example, the
expressions of ambivalence of the father complex in the relationship
to God or the promptings of the excretory organs in the excitement
of love. Hence normally the ego has a great task of isolation to
perform in the direction of the course of thought and we know
that in the exercise of the analytic technic, we must educate the
ego to renounce at times this otherwise justifiable function.

We have all had the experience that it is especially difficult for
the compulsive neurotic to follow the psychoanalytic principle. Prob-
ably as a result of the high tension of the conflict between the super-
ego and the It the ego is more watchful, more seriously aware of its
isolations. During the labor of thinking it has too much to defend,
the mixture of unconscious fancies, the expression of ambivalent
strivings. It dare not let itself go, and it finds itself constantly in
readiness to fight. It supports this compulsion to concentration and
isolation through magical acts of isolation, which as symptoms become
so striking and practically so significant, but are naturally worthless
per se and have the character of ceremonials.

488

As, however, it seeks to hinder associations, combination in thought,
it follows one of the oldest and most fundamental commands of
compulsion neurosis, the tabu of contact. If one puts to himself the
question why the avoidance of contact and infection plays so great
a rôle in the neurosis and brings such complicated systems into
content, one finds the answer that contact, bodily contact, is the
nearest goal both as to aggressive and tender object fixation. The
Eros wishes the contact, for it strives for union and abolition of the
distance between the ego and the love object. But also destruction–
which before the invention of weapons used at a distance could only
come from near by–must presuppose bodily contact, the application
of the hand. To touch a woman is in speech usage a euphemism for
her utilization as a sex object. Not to touch the penis is the text of
the prohibition against autoerotic satisfaction. As the compulsive
neurosis at the beginning follows the erotic contact and then after
regression the contact is masked as aggression, there is nothing else
to be forbidden in so high a degree, nothing so suited to become the
central point of a system of prohibition. Isolation is abolition of the
possibility of contact, a thing to withdraw from every contact and if
the neurotic isolates even an impression or an activity through a
pause, he gives us to understand symbolically that he will not allow
the thoughts of it to come into associative contact with other thoughts.

So far our investigations extend into the subject of symptom
formation. It hardly repays us to resume them. They are poor in
result and remain unfinished; they have in fact brought us little that
we did not know before. Symptom formation in other affections
besides phobias, conversion hysteria and compulsion neurosis for
the sake of comparison, promises nothing–too little is known of them.
Even from the comparison of these three neuroses there arises a
difficult task which cannot be put off. In all three the destruction of
the Oedipus complex is the exit; in all, we assume, castration fear
is the motif of the ego striving. But only in the phobias does such
fear come to the surface, is admitted. What becomes of the fear
in the two other affections, how has the ego spared itself this fear?
The problem becomes more difficult when we think of the above
mentioned possibility that the fear emerges in the course of disturbed
libido investment by a sort of agitation. Further, does it stand fast
that castration fear is the sole motif of repression (or defense)? If
one thinks of the neuroses of women, one must doubt it, for as surely
the castration complex may be found in them, one can hardly speak of
castration fear in the proper sense if castration is already completed.