10

ing such hypnoidal states easily become pathogenic, since such
states do not present the conditions for a normal draining off of
the emotion of the exciting processes. And as a result there
arises a peculiar product of this exciting process, that is, the
symptom, and this is projected like a foreign body into the
normal state. The latter has, then, no conception of the sig-
nificance of the hypnoidal pathogenic situation. Where a
symptom arises, we also find an amnesia, a memory gap, and
the filling of this gap includes the removal of the conditions
under which the symptom originated.

I am afraid that this portion of my treatment will not seem
very clear, but you must remember that we are dealing here
with new and difficult views, which perhaps could not be
made much clearer. This all goes to show that our knowl-
edge in this field is not yet very far advanced. Breuer’s idea
of the hypnoidal states has, moreover, been shown to be sur-
perfluous and a hindrance to further investigation, and has been
dropped from present conceptions of psychoanalysis. 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 moment.

You have probably also felt, and rightly, that Breuer’s in-
vestigations gave you only a very incomplete 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 dis-
trustful, had any one offered you at the beginning of his
observations 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

Ladies and Gentlemen: At about the same time that Breuer
was using the “talking-cure” with his patient, M. Charcot
began in Paris, with the hystericals of the Salpêtrière, those
researches which were to lead to a new understanding of the
disease. These results were, however, not yet known in
Vienna. But when about ten years later Breuer and I pub-
lished our preliminary commuication on the psychic mechan-
ism of hysterical phenomena, which grew out of the cathartic
treatment of Breuer’s first patient, we went both of us under
the spell of Charcot’s investigations. We made the pathogenic
experiences of our patients, which acted as psychic traumata,
equivalent to those physical traumata whose influence on
hysterical paralyses Charcot had determined; and Breuer’s
hypothesis of hypnoidal states is itself only an echo of the fact

II

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

that Charcot had artificially reproduced those traumatic paraly-
ses in hypnosis.

The great French observer, whose student I was during the
years 1885–86, had no natural bent for creating psychologi-
cal 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 dissociation 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. The hysterical patient is from
the start incapable of correlating and unifying the manifold of
his mental processes, and so there arises the tendency to men-
tal dissociation. If you will permit me to use a banal but
clear illustration, Janet’s hysterical reminds one of a weak
woman who has been shopping, and is now on her way home,
laden with packages and bundles of every description. She
cannot manage the whole lot with her two arms and her ten
fingers, and soon she drops one. When she stoops to pick this
up, another breaks loose, and so it goes on.

Now it does not agree very well with this assumed mental
weakness of hystericals, that there can be observed in hysteri-
cal cases, besides the phenomena of lessened functioning, ex-
amples of a partial increase of functional capacity, as a sort of
compensation. At the time when Breuer’s patient had forgot-
ten her mother-tongue and all other languages save English,
her control of English attained such a level that if a Ger-
man book was put before her she could give a fluent, perfect
translation of its contents at sight. When later 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). It was inevitable
that my views should diverge widely and radically, for my
point of departure was not, like that of Janet, laboratory re-
searches, but attempts at therapy. Above everything else, it
was practical needs that urged me on. The cathartic treat-
ment, 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 hyp-
nosis, 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.

12

FREUD

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 hyp-
notic somnambulism, and subjected to all sorts of experiences,
had only apparently lost the memory of those somnambulic
experiences, and that their memory of them could be awak-
ened even in the normal state. If he asked them about their
experiences during somnambulism, 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 de-
clared that they knew nothing more, I would assure them that
they did know, that they 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 hyp-
nosis, in learning from the patient all that was necessary for a
construction of the connection between the forgotten patho-
genic 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 technique. 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 associa-
tions with his other mental content, but hindered from becom-
ing 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 un-
conscious memories into the consciousness of the patient, in
opposition to this force, one got the sensation of his own per-
sonal 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

13

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

a starting point, quite a definite theory could be constructed.
These same forces, which in the present situation as resist-
ances opposed the emergence of the forgotten ideas into
consciousness, must themselves have caused the forgetting,
and repressed from consciousness the pathogenic experiences.
I called this hypothetical process “repression” (Verdräng-
ung), 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 repression, in which we were
now able to recognize the pathogenic mechanism of hysteria?
A comparative study of the pathogenic situations, which the
cathartic treatment has made possible, allows us to answer
this question. In all those experiences, it had happened that
a wish had been aroused, which was in sharp opposition to
the other desires of the individual, and was not capable of be-
ing reconciled with the ethical, æsthetic and personal preten-
sions of the patient’s personality. There had been a short
conflict, 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 con-
sciousness and forgotten. 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 conflict, 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 conditions 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 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-

14

in-law, of which she had not been conscious, was the next
moment consigned to repression 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 forgotten
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.¹

Perhaps I can make the process of repression and its neces-
sary relation to the resistance of the patient, more concrete
by a rough illustration, which I will derive from our present
situation.

Suppose that here in this hall and in this audience, whose
exemplary stillness and attention I cannot sufficiently com-
mend, there is an individual who is creating a disturbance,
and, by his ill-bred laughing, talking, by scraping his feet,
distracts my attention from my task. I explain that I cannot
go on with my lecture under these conditions, and thereupon
several strong men among you get up, and, after a short
struggle, eject the disturber of the peace from the hall. He
is now “repressed,” and I can continue my lecture. But in
order that the disturbance may not be repeated, in case the
man who has just been thrown out attempts to force his way
back into the room, the gentlemen who have executed my
suggestion take their chairs to the door and establish them-
selves there as a “resistance,” to keep up the repression.
Now, if you transfer both locations to the psyche, calling this
“consciousness,” and the outside the “unconscious,” you
have a tolerably good illustration of the process of repression.

We can see now the difference between our theory and that
of Janet. We do not derive the psychic fission from a congeni-
tal 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.

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 memo-
ries 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

¹This case has been translated by Dr. Brill in “Selected papers on
hysteria,” etc., p. 31–F 4.

15

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

“repression” we stand, not at the end, but at the very begin-
ning 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.
Now do not attempt to bring the case of Breuer’s patient
under the point of view of repression. This history cannot be
subjected to such an attempt, for it was gained with the help
of hypnotic influence. Only when hypnosis is excluded can
you see the resistances and repressions and get a correct idea
of the pathogenic process. Hypnosis conceals the resistances
and so makes a certain part of the mental field freely accessi-
ble. By this same process the resistances on the borders of
this field are heaped up into a rampart, which makes all be-
yond inaccessible.
The most valuable things that we have learned from
Breuer’s observations were his conclusions as to the connec-
tion of the symptoms with the pathogenic experiences or
psychic traumata, and we must not neglect to evaluate this
result properly from the standpoint of the repression-theory.
It is not at first evident how we can get from the repression
to the creation of the symptoms. Instead of giving a compli-
cated theoretical derivation, I will return at this point to the
illustration which I used to typify repression.
Remember that with the ejection of the rowdy and the
establishment of the watchers before the door, the affair is not
necessarily ended. It may very well happen that the ejected
man, now embittered and quite careless of consequences, gives
us more to do. He is no longer among us, we are free from
his presence, his scornful laugh, his half-audible remarks, but
in a certain sense the repression has miscarried, for he makes
a terrible uproar outside, and by his outcries and by hammer-
ing on the door with his fists interferes with my lecture more
than before. Under these circumstances it would be hailed
with delight if possibly our honored president, Dr. Stanley
Hall, should take upon himself the rôle of peacemaker and
mediator. He would speak with the rowdy on the outside, and
then turn to us with the recommendation that we let him in
again, provided he would guarantee to behave himself better.
On Dr. Hall’s authority we decide to stop the repression, and
now quiet and peace reign again. This is in fact a fairly good
presentation of the task devolving upon the physician in the
psychoanalytic therapy of neuroses. To say the same thing
more directly: 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 incompati-
ble wish is attached. They have, indeed, driven it out of
consciousness and out of memory, and apparently saved them-

16

FREUD

selves 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 conscious-
ness, instead of the repressed idea, a disguised and unrecog-
nizable surrogate-creation (Ersatzbildung), to which the same
painful sensations associate themselves that the patient
thought he was rid of through his repression. This surro-
gate 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 dis-
guise, a remnant of traceable similarity with the originally
repressed idea; the way in which the surrogate is built up can
be discovered during the psychoanalytic treatment of the
patient, and for his 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 con-
siderable 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 personality 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 (Sublimierung); or the rejection may be recog-
nized as rightly motivated, and the automatic and therefore in-
sufficient 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
“psychoanalysis.” 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 uncon-
scious, 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

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is not always easy to tell the