17

II

Symptom Formation

THE fundamentals of neurotic symptom formation have
long been studied and have been laid down in incontesta-
ble fashion, one may hope. Symptoms are supposed to be
an indication of and substitute for an unachieved in-
stinctual gratification; they are, that is, a result of a proc-
ess 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 accomplishes 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 un-
conscious formation. So far the matter is clear enough,
but presently we encounter unsolved difficulties.

The description we have given heretofore of the proc-
ess involved in repression has expressly emphasized the
result it achieves in excluding something from conscious-
ness, but has left other points open to doubt. The ques-
tion arises as to the fate of the instinctual impulse gener-
ated 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 grati-
fication was converted into displeasure (Unlust); where-
upon one was confronted by the problem of how unpleas-
ure can be the result of the gratification of an instinct.
We hope we shall clarify the situation if we lay it down

18

definitely that in consequence of repression the excita-
tion arising in the id altogether fails of discharge: the
ego succeeds in inhibiting or deflecting it. Thus the riddle
of the “transformation 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 tak-
ing 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,¹
is connected with the phenomenon 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 displeasure which reach it
therefrom it attempts to direct all psychic activity in ac-
cordance 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 prin-
ciple. If we consider this situation as an isolated phe-
nomenon for a moment, we may illustrate it by an ex-
ample from another field. In a given community a certain
clique opposes a political measure, the passage of which
would accord with the wishes of the majority. This mi-
nority then assumes control of the local press, influences
sovereign “public opinion” in this way, and thus succeeds

¹⁾See The Ego and the Id, Chapter II.–TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

19

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 undesirable endo-
psychic process might take place after the pattern of
defense against an external stimulus—that the ego em-
ploys 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
withdraws its libidinal cathexis from the perception of
the danger; it later learns that a more effective measure
consists in carrying out such muscular activity as will
make impossible the perception of the danger even when
the danger is not denied—in other words, it learns to
withdraw from the area of danger. Repression 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 unpleasure (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 im-
pulse automatically becomes converted into anxiety. If I
formerly so expressed myself, I was giving a phenomeno-
logical description and not a metapsychological statement
of the matter.

From the foregoing there arises the further question
as to 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,

20

should give rise to displeasure or anxiety, which accord-
ing to our supposition can only be the result of an in-
creased 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 al-
ready 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, how-
ever, and enter the borderland of physiology. Affective
states are incorporated into the life of the psyche as pre-
cipitates of primal traumatic experiences, and are evoked
in similar situations like memory symbols. I believe I was
not wrong in regarding these states as the equivalents
of hysterical attacks developed later and individually,
and in considering the former as the normal prototypes
of the latter. In man and in creatures related to him the
act of birth, as the initial individual experience of anx-
iety, 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 the fact that an affective symbol
for the danger situation is a biological necessity and would
have been created in any case. I likewise consider it in-
admissible to assume that in every outbreak of anxiety
something occurs in the psyche which is analogous to
a reproduction of the birth situation. It is not even cer-
tain whether hysterical seizures, which are originally
traumatic reproductions of this kind, retain this char-
acteristic permanently.

I have elsewhere stated that the majority of repressions
with which we have to do in therapeutic work are in-
 

21

stances of subsequential repression (Nachdrängen). They
presuppose primal repressions (Urverdrängungen) of an
earlier date which exercise over the more recent situation
their gravitative influence. But far too little is as yet
known concerning this hinterground and these primary
stages of repression. One easily runs the risk of overesti-
mating the rôle of the superego in repression. At the
present time it is impossible to decide whether the erect-
ing of the superego perhaps creates the demarcation be-
tween primal and subsequential repression. At all events,
the first, and very intense, attacks of anxiety occur prior
to the differentiation of the superego. It is entirely rea-
sonable to suppose that quantitative factors, such as a
stimulus of excessive strength, with the failure of the
safety device protective against too powerful stimuli
(Reizschutz), are the most direct causation of primal re-
pression.

The mention of this safeguard reminds us that repres-
sion takes place in two distinct situations, namely, when
an unwelcome instinctual impulse is aroused by an ex-
ternal perception, and when the impulse arises internally
without such provocation. We shall return later to this
distinction. Defense against stimuli occurs only against
external stimuli, however, not against internal instinctual
demands.

As long as we pay sole attention to the attempt at flight
on the part of the ego, we do not even come close to the
question of how symptoms are formed. Symptoms result
from the injuring of the instinctual impulse through re-
pression. If by means of a signal of distress the ego attains
its object of completely suppressing the instinctual im-
pulse, we have no intimation as to how this happens. We

22

learn something about it only from the cases in which
repression is more or less unsuccessful. Then it appears,
in general, that the instinctual impulse, despite repres-
sion, 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 deg-
radation of the process of gratification to the status of
a symptom, repression manifests its power in still another
respect. Whenever 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 encroach-
ment upon the environment; it is not permitted 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 proc-
ess from this reality.

The ego controls the entrance into consciousness as
well as the passage into activity directed to the environ-
ment; in repression it exerts its power at both places.
The instinct representative experiences the one, the in-
stinctual impulse itself the other side of the ego’s mani-
festation 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

23

which it maintains so arduously. This point of view has
since produced a number of reverberations in psycho-
analytic literature. Many opinions have forcibly empha-
sized 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 psycho-
analytic Weltanschauung. But ought not insight into the
modus operandi of repression to restrain the analyst, of
all persons, from such an extreme of partisanship?

I am not at all in favor of elaborating Weltanschau-
ungen. 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 edi-
tions 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.