We notice that the so-called bad habits shown by a child as it grows up are closely linked with early infantile sucking, such for instance as putting the finger in the mouth, biting the nails, picking the nose, ears, etc. We see, too, how closely these habits are connected with later masturbation. By analogy, the conclusion that these infantile habits are the first step to onanism, or to actions similar to onanism, and are therefore of a well-marked sexual character cannot be denied: it is perfectly justified. I have seen many cases in which a correlation existed between these childish habits and later masturbation. If this masturbation takes place in later childhood, before puberty, it is nothing but an infantile bad habit. From the fact of the correlation between masturbation and the other childish bad habits, we conclude that these habits have a sexual character, in so far as they are used to obtain physical satisfaction from the child’s own body.

This new standpoint is comprehensible and perhaps necessary. It is only a few steps from this point of view to regarding the infant’s act of sucking as of a sexual character. As you know, Freud took the few steps, but you have just heard me reject them. We have come to a difficulty which is very hard to solve. It would be relatively easy if we could accept two instincts side by side, each an entity in itself. Then the act of sucking the breast would be both an action of nutrition and a sexual act. This seems to be Freud’s conception. We find in adults the two instincts separated, yet existing side by side, or rather we find that there are two manifestations, in hunger, and in the sexual instinct. But at the sucking age, we find only the function of nutrition, rewarded by both pleasure and satisfaction. Its sexual character can only be argued by a petitio principii, for the facts show that the act of sucking is the first to give pleasure, not the sexual function. Obtaining pleasure is by no means identical with sexuality.

We deceive ourselves if we think that in the suckling both instincts exist side by side, for then we project into the psyche of the child the facts taken from the psychology of adults. The existence of the two instincts side by side does not occur in suckling, for one of these instincts has no existence as yet, or, if existing, is quite rudimentary. If we are to regard the striving for pleasure as something sexual, we might as well say paradoxically that hunger is a sexual striving, for this instinct seeks pleasure by satisfaction. If this were true, we should have to give our opponents permission to apply the terminology of hunger to sexuality. It would facilitate matters, were it possible to maintain that both instincts existed side by side, but it contradicts the observed facts and would lead to untenable consequences.

Before I try to resolve this opposition, I must first say something more about Freud’s sexual theory, and its transformations.

The Polymorphic Perverse Sexuality of Infancy

We have already reached the conclusion, setting out from the idea of the shock being apparently due to sexual phantasies, that the child must have, in contradiction to the views hitherto prevailing, a nearly fully formed sexuality, and even a polymorphic perverse sexuality. Its sexuality does not seem concentrated on the genital functions or on the other sex, but is occupied with its own body; whence it is said to be auto-erotic. If its sexual instinct is directed to another person, no distinction, or but the very slightest, is made as to sex. It can, therefore, be very easily homo-sexual. In place of non-existing local sexual function there exists a series of so-called bad habits, which from this standpoint look like a series of perversities, since they have the closest analogy with the later perversities. In consequence of this way of regarding the subject, sexuality, whose nature is ordinarily regarded as a unit, becomes decomposed into a multiplicity of isolated striving forces. Freud then arrived at the conception of the so-called “erogenous zones,” by which he understood mouth, skin, anus, etc. (It is, of course, a universal tacit presumption that sexuality has its origin in the sexual organs.)

The term “erogenous zone” reminds us of “spasmo-genic zones,” and the underlying image is at all events the same; just as the spasmo-genic zone is the place whence the spasm arises, so the erogenous zone is the place whence arises an affluent to sexuality. Based upon the model of the genital organs as the anatomical origin of sexuality, the erogenous zones must be conceived as being so many genitals out of which the streams of sexuality flow together. This is the condition of the polymorphic perverse sexuality of childhood. The expression “perverse” seems to be justified by the close analogy with the later perversities which present, so to speak, but a new edition of certain early infantile perverse habits. They are very often connected with one or other of the different erogenous zones, and are the cause of those exchanges in sex, which are so characteristic for childhood.

According to this view, the later normal and monomorphic sexuality is built up out of several components. The first division is into homo- and hetero-sexual components, to which is linked an auto-erotic component, as also there are components of the different erogenous zones. This conception can be compared with the position of physics before Robert Mayer, when only isolated forces, having elementary qualities, were recognized, whose interchanges were little understood. The law of the conservation of energy brought order into the inter-relationship of the forces, at the same time abolishing the conception of those forces as absolute elements, but regarding them as interchangeable manifestations of one and the same energy.

The Sexual Components as Energic Manifestations

Conceptions of great importance do not arise only in one brain, but are floating in the air and dip here and there, appearing even under other forms, and in other regions, where it is often very difficult to recognize the common fundamental idea. Thus it happened with the splitting up of sexuality into the polymorphic perverse sexuality of childhood.

Experience forces us to accept a constant exchange of isolated components as we notice more and more that, for instance, perversities exist at the expense of normal sexuality, or that the increase of certain kinds of sex-manifestations causes corresponding deficiencies of another kind. To make the matter clearer, let me give you an instance: A young man had a homo-sexual phase lasting for some years, during which time women had no interest for him. This abnormal condition changed gradually toward his twentieth year and his erotic interest became more and more normal. He began to take great interest in girls, and soon the last traces of his homo-sexuality were conquered. This condition lasted several years, and he had some successful love-affairs. Then he wished to get married; he had here to suffer a great disappointment, as the girl to whom he proposed refused him. During the ensuing phase he absolutely abandoned the idea of marriage. After that he experienced a dislike of all women, and one day he discovered that he was again perfectly homo-sexual, that is, young men had an unusually irritating influence upon him. To regard sexuality as composed of a fixed hetero-sexual component, and a like homo-sexual element, will never suffice to explain this case, for the conception of the existence of fixed components excludes any kind of transformation.

To understand the case, we have to admit a great mobility of the sexual components, which even goes so far that one of the components can practically disappear completely, whilst the other comes to the front. If only substitution took place, if for instance the homo-sexual component entered the unconscious, leaving the field of consciousness to the hetero-sexual component, modern scientific knowledge would lead us to conclude that equivalent effects arose from the unconscious sphere. Those effects would have to be conceived as resistances against the activity of the hetero-sexual component, as a repugnance towards women.

Experience tells us nothing about this. There have been some small traces of influences of this kind, but of such slight intensity that they cannot be compared with the intensity of the former homo-sexual component. On the conception that has been outlined, it is also incomprehensible how this homo-sexual component, regarded as so firmly fixed, can ever disappear without leaving active traces. To explain things, the process of development is called in, forgetting that this is only a word and explains nothing. You see, therefore, the urgent necessity of an adequate explanation of such a change of scene. For this we must have a dynamic hypothesis. Such commutations are only conceivable as dynamic or energic processes. I cannot conceive how manifestations of functions can disappear if I do not accept a change in the relation of one force to another. Freud’s theory did have regard to this necessity in the conception of components. The presumption of isolated functions existing side by side began to be somewhat weakened, more in practice than theoretically. It was replaced by an energic conception. The term chosen for this conception is “libido.”

Chapter III
The Conception of Libido

Freud had already introduced the idea of libido in his “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory” in the following words:

“In biology, the fact that both mankind and animals have a sexual want is expressed by the conception of the sexual desire. This is done by analogy with the want of nourishment, so-called hunger. Popular speech has no corresponding characterization for the word ‘hunger,’ and so science uses the word ‘libido.’”

In Freud’s definition, the term “libido” appears as exclusively a sexual desire. “Libido” as a medical term is certainly used for sexual desire, and especially for sexual lust. But the classical definition of this word as found in Cicero, Sallust, and others, was not so exclusive. The word is there used in a more general sense for every passionate desire. I only just mention this definition here, as further on it plays an important part in our considerations, and as it is important to know that the term “libido” has really a much wider meaning than is associated with it through medical language.

The idea of libido (while maintaining its sexual meaning in the author’s sense as long as possible) offers us the dynamic value which we are seeking in order to explain the shifting of the psychological scenery. With this conception it is much simpler to formulate the phenomena in question, instead of by the incomprehensible substitution of the homo- by the hetero-sexual component. We may say now that the libido has gradually withdrawn from its homo-sexual manifestation and is transferred in the same measure into a hetero-sexual manifestation. Thus the homo-sexual component practically disappears. It remains only an empty possibility, signifying nothing in itself. Its very existence, therefore, is rightly denied by the laity, just as we doubt the possibility that any man selected at random would turn out to be a murderer. By the use of this conception of libido many relations between the isolated sexual functions are now easily explicable.

The early idea of the multiplicity of sexual components must be given up: it savors too much of the ancient philosophical notion of the faculties of the mind. Its place is taken by libido which is capable of manifold applications. The earlier components only represent possibilities of activities. With this conception of libido, the original idea of a divided sexuality with different roots is replaced by a dynamic unity, without which the formerly important components remain but empty possibilities of activities. This development in our conception is of great importance. We have here the same process which Robert Mayer introduced into dynamics. Just as the conception of the conservation of energy removed their character as elements from the forces, imparting to them the character of a manifestation of energy, so the libido theory similarly removes from the sexual components the idea of the mental “faculties” as elements (“Seelen Vermögen”), and ascribes to them merely phenomenal value. This conception represents the impression of reality far more than the theory of components. With a libido-theory we can easily explain the case of the young man. The disappointment he met with, just at the time he had definitely decided on a hetero-sexual life, drove his libido again from the hetero-sexual manifestation into a homo-sexual form, thus calling forth his entire homo-sexuality.

The Energic Theory of Libido

I must point out here that the analogy with the law of the conservation of energy is very close. In both cases the question arises when an effect of energy disappears, where is this energy meanwhile, and where will it reemerge? Applying this point of view as a heuristic principle to the psychology of human conduct, we shall make some astonishing discoveries. Then we shall see how the most heterogeneous phases of individual psychological development are connected in an energic relationship. Every time we see a person who is splenetic or has a morbid conviction, or some exaggerated mental attitude, we know here is too much libido, and the excess must have been taken away from somewhere else where there is too little. From this standpoint, psychoanalysis is that method which discovers those places or functions where there is too little or too much libido, and restores the just proportions. Thus the symptoms of a neurosis must be considered as exaggerated and correspondingly disturbed functional manifestations overflowing with libido.

The energy which has been used for this purpose has been taken away from somewhere else, and it is the task of the psychoanalyst, to restore it whence it was taken, or to bestow it where it was never before given. Those complexes of symptoms which are mainly characterized by lack of libido, for instance, the so-called apathetic conditions, force us to reverse the question. Here we have to ask, where did the libido go? The patient gives us the impression of having no libido, and there are occasionally physicians who believe exactly what the patients tell them. Such physicians have a primitive way of thinking, like the savage who believes, when he sees an eclipse of the sun, that the sun has been swallowed up and put to death. But the sun is only hidden, and so it is with these patients. Although the libido is there, it is not get-at-able, and is inaccessible to the patient himself. Superficially, we have here a lack of libido. It is the task of psychoanalysis to search for that hidden place where the libido dwells, and where it is as a rule inaccessible to the patient. The hidden place is the non-conscious, which may also be called the unconscious, without ascribing to it any mysterious significance.

The Conception of Unconscious Phantasy

Psychoanalytic experience has taught us that there are non-conscious systems which, by analogy with conscious phantasies, can be described as phantasy-systems of the unconscious. In cases of neurotic apathy these phantasy systems of the unconscious are the objects of the libido. We know well that, when we speak of unconscious phantasy systems, we only speak figuratively. We do not mean more by this than that we accept as an indispensable postulate the conception of psychic entities existing outside consciousness. Experience teaches us, we might say daily, that there are unconscious psychic processes which influence the disposition of the libido in a perceptible way. Those cases, known to every psychiatrist in which complicated symptoms of delusions emerge with relative great suddenness, show clearly that there must be unconscious psychic development and preparation, for we cannot regard them as having been just suddenly formed when they entered consciousness.

The Sexual Terminology

I feel myself justified in making this digression concerning the unconscious. I have done it to point out that, with regard to shifting of the manifestations of the libido, we have to deal not only with the conscious, but also with another factor, the unconscious, whither the libido sometimes disappears. We have not yet followed up the discussion of the further consequences which result from the adoption of the libido-theory.

Freud has taught us, and we see it in the daily practice of psychoanalysis, that in earlier childhood, instead of the normal later sexuality, we find many tendencies which in later life are called perversions. We have to admit that Freud has the right to give to these tendencies a sexual terminology. Through the introduction of the conception of the libido, we see that in adults those elementary components which seemed to be the origin and the source of normal sexuality, lose their importance, and are reduced to mere potentialities. The effective power, their life force, is to be found in the libido. Without libido these components mean nothing. We saw that Freud gives to the conception of libido an undoubted sexual definition, somewhat in the sense of sexual desire. The general view is, that libido in this sense only comes into being at the age of puberty. How are we then to explain the fact that in Freud’s view a child has a polymorphic-perverse sexuality, and that therefore, in children, the libido brings into action not only one, but several possibilities? If the libido, in Freud’s sense, begins its existence at puberty, it could not be held accountable for earlier infantile perversions. In that case, we should have to regard these infantile perversions as “faculties of the mind,” in the sense of the theory of components. Apart from the hopeless theoretical confusion which would thus arise, we must not multiply explanatory principles in accordance with the philosophical axiom: “principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda.”

There is no other way but to agree that before and after puberty it is the same libido. Hence, the perversities of childhood have arisen exactly in the same way as those of adults. Common sense will object to this, as obviously the sexual needs of children cannot possibly be the same as those of adults. We might admit, with Freud, that the libido before and after puberty is the same, but is different in its intensity. Instead of the intense post-pubertal sexual desire, there would be first a slight sexual desire in childhood, with diminishing intensity until, as we reach back to the first year, it is but a trace. We might admit that we are biologically in agreement with this formulation. It would then have to be also agreed that everything that falls into the region of this enlarged conception of sexuality is already pre-existing but in miniature; for instance, all those emotional manifestations of psycho-sexuality: desire for affection, jealousy, and many others, and by no means least, the neuroses of childhood.

It must, however, be admitted that these emotional manifestations of childhood by no means make the impression of being in miniature; their intensity can rival that of an affect among adults. Nor must it be forgotten that experience has shown that perverse manifestations of sexuality in childhood are often more glaring, and indeed seem to have a greater development, than in adults. If an adult under similar conditions had this apparently excessive form of sexuality, which is practically normal in children, we could rightly expect a total absence of normal sexuality, and of many other important biological adaptations. An adult is rightly called perverse when his libido is not used for normal functions, and the same could be said of a child: it is polymorphous perverse since it does not know normal sexual functions.

These considerations suggest the idea that perhaps the amount of libido is always the same, and that no increase first occur at puberty. This somewhat audacious conception accords with the example of the law of the conservation of energy, according to which the quantity of energy remains always the same. It is possible that the summit of maturity is reached when the infantile diffuse applications of libido discharge themselves into the one channel of definite sexuality, and thus lose themselves therein. For the moment we must content ourselves with these suggestions, for we must next pay attention to one point of criticism concerning the quality of the infantile libido.

Many critics do not admit that the infantile libido is simply less intense or is essentially of the same kind as the libido of adults. The emotions among adults are correlated with the genital functions. This is not the case in children, or it is only so in miniature, or exceptionally, and this gives rise to an important distinction, which must not be undervalued.

I believe such an objection is justified. There is really a considerable difference between immature and fully developed functions, as there is a difference between play and reality, between shooting with blank and with loaded cartridges. That the childish libido has the harmlessness demanded by common sense cannot be contested. But of course none can deny that blank shooting is shooting. We must get accustomed to the idea that sexuality really exists, even before puberty, right back in early childhood, and that we have no right to pretend that manifestations of this immature sexuality are not sexual. This does not indeed refute the objection, which, while recognizing the existence of infantile sexuality in the form already described, yet denies Freud’s claim to regard as sexual early infantile manifestations such as sucking. We have mentioned already the motives which induced Freud to enlarge the sexual terminology in such a way. We mentioned, too, how this very act of sucking, for instance, could be conceived from the standpoint of pleasure in the function of nutrition, and that, on biological grounds, there was more justification for this derivation than for Freud’s view. It might be objected that these and similar activities of the oral zones are found in later life in an undoubted sexual use. This only means that these activities can in later life be used for sexual purposes, but that does not tell us anything concerning the primitive sexual nature of these forms. I must, therefore, admit that I find no ground for regarding the activities of the suckling, which provoke pleasure and satisfaction, from the standpoint of sexuality. Indeed there are many objections against this conception. It seems to me, in so far as I am capable of judging these difficult problems, that from the standpoint of sexuality it is necessary to divide human life into three phases.

The Three Phases of Life

The first phase embraces the first years of life. I call this part of life the pre-sexual stage. These years correspond to the caterpillar-stage of butterflies, and are characterized almost exclusively by the functions of nutrition and growth.

The second phase embraces the later years of childhood up to puberty, and might be called the pre-pubertal stage.

The third phase is that of riper years, proceeding only from puberty onwards, and could be called the time of maturity.

You cannot have failed to notice that we become conscious of the greatest difficulty when we arrive at the question at what age we must put the limit of the pre-sexual stage. I am ready to confess my uncertainty with regard to this problem. If I survey the psychoanalytical experiences with children, as yet insufficiently numerous, at the same time keeping in mind the observations made by Freud, it seems to me that the limit of this phase lies between the third and fifth years. This, of course, with due consideration for the greatest individual diversities. From various aspects this is an important age. The child has emancipated itself already from the helplessness of the baby, and a series of important psychological functions have acquired a firm hold. From this period on, the obscurity of the early infantile “amnesia,” or the discontinuity of the early infantile consciousness, begins to clear up through the sporadic continuity of memory. It seems as if, at this age, a considerable step had been made towards emancipation and the formation of a new and independent personality. As far as we know, the first signs of interest and activity which may fairly be called sexual fall into this period, although these sexual indications have still the infantile characteristics of harmlessness and naiveté. I think I have sufficiently demonstrated why a sexual terminology cannot be given to the pre-sexual stage, and so we may now consider the other problems from the standpoint we have just reached. You will remember that we dropped the problem of the libido in childhood, because it seemed impossible to arrive at any clearness in that way. But now we are obliged to take up the question again, if only to see whether the energic conception harmonizes with the principles just advanced. We saw, following Freud’s conception, that the altered manifestations of the infantile sexuality, if compared with those of maturity, are to be explained by the diminution of sexuality in childhood.

The Sexual Definition of Libido Must Be Abandoned

The intensity of the libido is said to be diminished relatively to the early age. But we advanced just now several considerations to show why it seems doubtful if we can regard the vital functions of a child, sexuality excepted, as of less intensity than those of adults. We can really say that, sexuality excepted, the emotional phenomena, and, if nervous symptoms are present, then these likewise are quite as intense as those of adults. On the energic conception of the libido all these things are but manifestations of the libido. But it becomes rather difficult to conceive that the intensity of the libido can ever constitute the difference between a mature and an immature sexuality. The explanation of this difference seems rather to postulate a change in the localization of the libido (if the expression be allowed). In contradistinction to the medical definition the libido in children is occupied far more with certain side-functions of a mental and physiological nature than with local sexual functions. One is here already tempted to remove from the term libido the predicate “sexualis,” and thus to have done with the sexual definition of the term given in Freud’s “Three Contributions.”

This necessity becomes imperative, when we put it in the form of a question: The child in the first years of its life is intensely living — suffering and enjoying — the question is, whether his striving, his suffering, his enjoyment are by reason of his libido sexualis? Freud has pronounced himself in favor of this supposition. There is no need to repeat the reasons through which I am compelled to accept the pre-sexual stage. The larva stage possesses a libido of nutrition, if I may so express it, but not yet the libido sexualis. It is thus we must put it, if we wish to keep the energic conception which the libido theory offers us. I think there is nothing for it but to abandon the sexual definition of libido, or we shall lose what there is valuable in the libido theory, that is, the energic conception. For a long time past the desire to extend the meaning of libido, and to remove it from its narrow and sexual limitations, has forced itself upon Freud’s school. One was never weary of insisting that sexuality in the psychological sense was not to be taken too literally, but in a broader connotation; but exactly how, that remained obscure, and thus too, sincere criticism remained unsatisfied.

I do not think I am going astray if I see the real value of the libido theory in the energic conception, and not in its sexual definition. Thanks to the former, we are in possession of a most valuable heuristic principle. We owe to the energic conception the possibility of dynamic ideas and relationships, which are of inestimable value for us in the chaos of the psychic world. The Freudians would be wrong not to listen to the voice of criticism, which reproaches our conception of libido with mysticism and inaccessibility. We deceived ourselves in believing that we could ever make the libido sexualis the bearer of the energic conception of the psychical life, and if many of Freud’s school still believe they possess a well-defined and almost complete conception of libido, they are not aware that this conception has been put to use far beyond the bounds of its sexual definition. The critics are right when they object to our theory of libido as explaining things which cannot belong to its sphere. It must be admitted that Freud’s school makes use of a conception of libido which passes beyond the bounds of its primary definition. Indeed, this must produce the impression that one is working with a mystical principle.

The Problem of Libido in Dementia Præcox

I have sought to show these infringements in a special work, “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido,” and at the same time the necessity for creating a new conception of libido, which shall be in harmony with the energic conception. Freud himself was forced to a discussion of his original conception of libido when he tried to apply its energic point of view to a well-known case of dementia præcox — the so-called Schreber case. In this case, we had to deal, among other things, with that well-known problem in the psychology of dementia præcox, the loss of adaptation to reality, the peculiar phenomenon consisting in a special tendency of these patients to construct an inner world of phantasy of their own, surrendering for this purpose their adaptation to reality.

As a part of the phenomenon, the lack of sociability or emotional rapport will be well known to you all, this representing a striking disturbance of the function of reality. Through considerable psychological study of these patients we discovered, that this lack of adaptation to reality is compensated by a progressive increase in the creation of phantasies. This goes so far that the dream-world is for the patient more real than external reality. The patient Schreber, described by Freud, found for this phenomenon an excellent figurative description in his delusion of the “end of the world.” His loss of reality is thus very concretely represented. The dynamic conception of this phenomenon is very clear. We say that the libido withdrew itself more and more from the external world, consequently entered the inner world, the world of phantasies, and had there to create, as a compensation for the lost external world, a so-called equivalent of reality. This compensation is built up piece by piece, and it is most interesting to observe the psychological materials of which this inner world is composed. This way of conceiving the transposition and displacement of the libido has been made by the every-day use of the term, its original pure sexual meaning being very rarely recalled. In general, the word “libido” is used practically in so harmless a sense that Claparède, in a conversation, once remarked that we could as well use the word “interest.”

The manner in which this expression is generally used has given rise to a way of using the term that made it possible to explain Schreber’s “end of the world” by withdrawal of the libido. On this occasion, Freud recalled his original sexual definition of the libido, and tried to arrive at an understanding with the change which in the meantime had taken place. In his article on Schreber, he discusses the question, whether what the psychoanalytic school calls libido, and conceives of as “interest from erotic sources” coincides with interest generally speaking. You see that, putting the problem in this way, Freud asks the question which Claparède practically answered. Freud discusses the question here, whether the loss of reality noticed in dementia præcox, to which I drew attention in my book, “The Psychology of Dementia Præcox,” is due entirely to the withdrawal of erotic interest, or if this coincides with the so-called objective interest in general. We can hardly agree that the normal “fonction du réel” [Janet] is only maintained through erotic interest.

The fact is that, in many cases, reality vanishes altogether, and not a trace of psychological adaptation can be found in these cases. Reality is repressed, and replaced by phantasies created through complexes. We are forced to say that not only the erotic interests, but interests in general — that is, the whole adaptation to reality — are lost. I formerly tried, in my “Psychology of Dementia Præcox,” to get out of this difficulty by using the expression “psychic energy,” because I could not base the theory of dementia præcox on the theory of transference of the libido in its sexual definition. My experience — at that time chiefly psychiatric — did not permit me to understand this theory. Only later did I learn to understand the correctness of the theory as regards the neuroses by increased experience in hysteria and the compulsion neurosis. As a matter of fact, an abnormal displacement of libido, quite definitely sexual, does play a great part in the neuroses. But although very characteristic repressions of sexual libido do take place in certain neuroses, that loss of reality, so typical for dementia præcox, never occurs. In dementia præcox, so extreme is the loss of the function of reality that this loss must also entail a loss of motive power, to which any sexual nature must be absolutely denied, for it will not seem to anyone that reality is a sexual function. If this were so, the withdrawal of erotic interests in the neuroses would lead to a loss of reality — a loss of reality indeed that could be compared with that in dementia præcox.

But, as I said before, this is not the case. These facts have made it impossible for me to transfer Freud’s libido theory to dementia præcox. Hence, my view is, that the attempt made by Abraham, in his article “The Psycho-Sexual Differences Between Hysteria and Dementia Præcox,” is from the standpoint of Freud’s conception of libido theoretically untenable. Abraham’s belief, that the paranoidal system, or the symptomatology of dementia præcox, arises by the libido withdrawing from the external world, cannot be justified if we take “libido” according to Freud’s definition. For, as Freud has clearly shown, a mere introversion or regression of the libido leads always to a neurosis, and not to dementia præcox. It is impossible to transfer the libido theory, with its sexual definition, directly to dementia præcox, as this disease shows a loss of reality not to be explained by the deficiency in erotic interests.

It gives me particular satisfaction that our master also, when he placed his hand on the fragile material of paranoiac psychology, felt himself compelled to doubt the applicability of his conception of libido which had prevailed hitherto. My position of reserve towards the ubiquity of sexuality which I allowed myself to adopt in the preface to my “Psychology of Dementia Præcox” — although with a complete recognition of the psychological mechanism — was dictated by the conception of the libido theory of that time. Its sexual definition did not enable me to explain those disturbances of functions which affect the indefinite sphere of the instinct of hunger, just as much as they do those of sexuality. For a long time the libido theory seemed to me inapplicable to dementia præcox.

The Genetic Conception of Libido

With greater experience in my analytical work, I noticed that a slow change of my conception of libido had taken place. A genetic conception of libido gradually took the place of the descriptive definition of libido contained in Freud’s “Three Contributions.” Thus it became possible for me to replace, by the expression “psychic energy,” the term libido. The next step was that I asked myself if now-a-days the function of reality consists only to a very small extent of sexual libido, and to a very large extent of other impulses. It is still a very important question, considered from the phylogenetic standpoint, whether the function of reality is not, at least very largely, of sexual origin. It is impossible to answer this question directly, in so far as the function of reality is concerned. We shall try to come to some understanding by a side-path.

A superficial glance at the history of evolution suffices to teach us that innumerable complicated functions, whose sexual character must be denied, are originally nothing but derivations from the instinct of propagation. As is well known, there has been an important displacement in the fundamentals of propagation during the ascent through the animal scale. The offspring has been reduced in number, and the primitive uncertainty of impregnation has been replaced by a quite assured impregnation, and a more effective protection of offspring. The energy required for the production of eggs and sperma has been transferred into the creation of mechanisms of attraction, and mechanisms for the protection of offspring. Here we find the first instincts of art in animals, used for the instinct of propagation, and limited to the rutting season. The original sexual character of these biological institutions became lost with their organic fixation, and their functional independence. None the less, there can be no doubt as to their sexual origin, as, for instance, there is no doubt about the original relation between sexuality and music, but it would be a generalization as futile, as unesthetic, to include music under the category of sexuality. Such a terminology would lead to the consideration of the Cathedral of Cologne under mineralogy, because it has been built with stones. Those quite ignorant of the problems of evolution are much astonished to find how few things there are in human life which cannot finally be reduced to the instinct of propagation. It embraces nearly everything, I think, that is dear and precious to us.

We have hitherto spoken of the libido as of the instinct of reproduction, or the instinct of the preservation of the species, and limited our conception to that libido which is opposed to hunger, just as the instinct of the preservation of the species is opposed to that of self-preservation. Of course in nature this artificial distinction does not exist. Here we find only a continuous instinct of life, a will to live, which tries to obtain the propagation of the whole race by the preservation of the individual. To this extent this conception coincides with that of Schopenhauer’s “will,” as objectively we can only conceive a movement as a manifestation of an internal desire. As we have already boldly concluded that the libido, which originally subserved the creation of eggs and seed, is now firmly organized in the function of nest-building, and can no longer be employed otherwise, we are similarly obliged to include in this conception every desire, hunger no less. We have no warrant whatever for differentiating essentially the desire to build nests from the desire to eat.

I think you will already understand the position we have reached with these considerations. We are about to follow up the energic conception by putting the energic mode of action in place of the purely formal functioning. Just as reciprocal actions, well known in the old natural science, have been replaced by the law of the conservation of energy, so here too, in the sphere of psychology, we seek to replace the reciprocal activities of coordinated psychical faculties by energy, conceived as one and homogeneous. Thus we must bow to the criticism which reproaches the psychoanalytic school for working with a mystical conception of libido. I have to dispel this illusion that the whole psychoanalytic school possesses a clearly conceived and obvious conception of libido. I maintain that the conception of libido with which we are working is not only not concrete or known, but is an unknown X, a conceptual image, a token, and no more real than the energy in the conceptual world of the physicist. In this wise only can we escape those arbitrary transgressions of the proper boundaries, which are always made when we want to reduce coördinated forces to one another.

Certain analogies of the action of heat with the action of light are not to be explained by saying that this tertium comparationis proves that the undulations of heat are the same as the undulations of light; the conceptual image of energy is the real point of comparison. If we regard libido in this way we endeavor to simulate the progress which has already been made in physics. The economy of thought which physics has already obtained we strive after in our libido theory. We conceive libido now simply as energy, so that we are in the position to figure the manifold processes as forms of energy. Thus, we replace the old reciprocal action by relations of absolute equivalence. We shall not be astonished if we are met with the cry of vitalism. But we are as far removed from any belief in a specific vital power, as from any other metaphysical assertion. We term libido that energy which manifests itself by vital processes, which is subjectively perceived as aspiration, longing and striving. We see in the diversity of natural phenomena the desire, the libido, in the most diverse applications and forms. In early childhood we find libido at first wholly in the form of the instinct of nutrition, providing for the development of the body. As the body develops, there open up, successively, new spheres of influence for the libido. The last, and, from its functional significance, most overpowering sphere of influence, is sexuality, which at first seems very closely connected with the function of nutrition. With that you may compare the well-known influence on propagation of the conditions of nutrition in the lower animals and plants.

In the sphere of sexuality, libido does take that form whose enormous importance justifies us in the choice of the term “libido,” in its strict sexual sense. Here for the first time libido appears in the form of an undifferentiated sexual primitive power, as an energy of growth, clearly forcing the individual towards division, budding, etc. The clearest separation of the two forms of libido is found among those animals where the stage of nutrition is separated by the pupa stage from the stage of sexuality. Out of this sexual primitive power, through which one small creature produces millions of eggs and sperm, derivatives have been developed by extraordinary restriction of fecundity, the functions of which are maintained by a special differentiated libido. This differentiated libido is henceforth desexualized, for it is dissociated from its original function of producing eggs and sperm, nor is there any possibility of restoring it to its original function.

The whole process of development consists in the increasing absorption of the libido which only created, originally, products of generation in the secondary functions of attraction, and protection of offspring. This development presupposes a quite different and much more complicated relationship to reality, a true function of reality which is functionally inseparable from the needs of reproduction. Thus the altered mode of reproduction involves a correspondingly increased adaptation to reality. This, of course, does not imply that the function of reality is exclusively due to differentiation in reproduction. I am aware that a large part of the instinct of nutrition is connected with it. Thus we arrive at an insight into certain primitive conditions of the function of reality. It would be fundamentally wrong to pretend that the compelling source is still a sexual one. It was largely a sexual one originally. The process of absorption of the primitive libido into secondary functions certainly always took place in the form of so-called affluxes of sexual libido (“libidinöse Zuschüsse”).

That is to say, sexuality was diverted from its original destination, a definite quantity was used up in the mechanisms of mutual attraction and of protection of offspring. This transference of sexual libido from the sexual sphere to associated functions is still taking place (e. g., modern neo-Malthusianism is the artificial continuation of the natural tendency). We call this process sublimation, when this operation occurs without injury to the adaptation of the individual; we call it repression — when the attempt fails. From the descriptive standpoint psychoanalysis accepts the multiplicity of instincts, and, among them, the instinct of sexuality as a special phenomenon, moreover, it recognizes certain affluxes of the libido to asexual instincts.

From the genetic standpoint it is otherwise. It regards the multiplicity of instincts as issuing out of relative unity, the primitive libido. It recognizes that definite quantities of the primitive libido are split off, associated with the recently created functions, and finally merged in them. From this standpoint we can say, without any difficulty, that patients with dementia præcox withdraw their “libido” from the external world and in consequence suffer a loss of reality, which is compensated by an increase of the phantasy-building activities.

We must now fit the new conception of libido into that theory of sexuality in childhood which is of such great importance in the theory of neurosis. Generally speaking, we first find the libido as the energy of vital activities acting in the zone of the function of nutrition. Through the rhythmical movements in the act of sucking, nourishment is taken with all signs of satisfaction. As the individual grows and his organs develop, the libido creates new ways of desire, new activities and satisfactions. Now the original model — rhythmic activity, creating pleasure and satisfaction — must be transferred to other functions which have their final goal in sexuality.

This transition is not made suddenly at puberty, but it takes place gradually throughout the course of the greater part of childhood. The libido can only very slowly and with great difficulty detach itself from the characteristics of the function of nutrition, in order to pass over into the characteristics of sexual function. As far as I can see, we have two epochs during this transition, the epoch of sucking and the epoch of the displaced rhythmic activity. Considered solely from the point of view of its mode of action, sucking clings entirely to the domain of the function of nutrition, but it presents also a far wider aspect, it is no mere function of nutrition, it is a rhythmical activity, with its goal in a pleasure and satisfaction of its own, distinct from the obtaining of nourishment. The hand comes into play as an accessory organ. In the epoch of the displaced rhythmical activity it stands out still more as an accessory organ, when the oral zone ceases to give pleasure, which must now be obtained in other directions. The possibilities are many. As a rule the other openings of the body become the first objects of interest of the libido; then follow the skin in general and certain places of predilection upon it.

The actions carried out at these places generally take the form of rubbing, piercing, tugging, etc., accompanied by a certain rhythm, and serve to produce pleasure. After a halt of greater or less duration at these stations, the libido proceeds until it arrives at the sexual zone, where it may next provoke the first onanistic attempts. During its “march,” the libido carries over not a little from the function of nutrition into the sexual zone; this readily explains the numerous close associations between the function of nutrition and the sexual function.

This “march” of the libido takes place at the time of the pre-sexual stage, which is characterized by the fact that the libido gradually relinquishes the special character of the instinct of nutrition, and by degrees acquires the character of the sexual instinct. At this stage we cannot yet speak of a true sexual libido. Therefore we are obliged to qualify the polymorphous perverse sexuality of early infancy differently. The polymorphism of the tendencies of the libido at this time is to be explained as the gradual movement of the libido away from the sphere of the function of nutrition towards the sexual function.

The Infantile “Perversity.” — Thus rightly vanishes the term “perverse” — so strongly contested by our opponents — for it provokes a false idea.

When a chemical body breaks up into its elements, these elements are the products of its disintegration, but it is not permissible on that account to describe elements as entirely products of disintegration. Perversities are disorders of fully-developed sexuality, but are never precursors of sexuality, although there is undoubtedly an analogy between the precursors and the products of disintegration. The childish rudiments, no longer to be conceived as perverse, but to be regarded as stages of development, change gradually into normal sexuality, as the normal sexuality develops.

The more smoothly the libido withdraws from its provisional positions, the more completely and the more quickly does the formation of normal sexuality take place. It is proper to the conception of normal sexuality that all those early infantile inclinations which are not yet sexual should be given up. The less this is the case, the more is sexuality threatened with perverse development. The expression “perverse” is here used in its right place. The fundamental condition of a perversity is an infantile, imperfectly developed state of sexuality.

Chapter IV
The Etiological Significance of the Infantile Sexuality

Now that we have decided what is to be understood as infantile sexuality, we can follow up the discussion of the theory of the neuroses, which we began in the first lecture and then dropped. We followed the theory of the neuroses up to the point where we ran against Freud’s statement, that the tendency which brings a traumatic event to a pathological activity, is a sexual one. From our foregoing considerations we understand what is meant by a sexual tendency. It is a standing still, a retardation in that process whereby the libido frees itself from the manifestations of the pre-sexual stage.

First of all, we must regard this disturbance as a fixation. The libido, in its transition from the function of nutrition to the sexual function, lingers unduly at certain stages. A disharmony is created, since provisional and, as it were, worn-out activities, persist at a period when they should have been overcome. This formula is applicable to all those infantile characteristics so prevalent among neurotic people that no attentive observer can have overlooked them. In dementia præcox it is so obtrusive that a symptom complex, hebephrenia, derives its name therefrom.

The matter is not ended, however, by saying that the libido lingers in the preliminary stages, for while the libido thus lingers, time does not stand still, and the development of the individual is always proceeding apace. The physical maturation increases the contrast and the disharmony between the persistent infantile manifestations, and the demands of the later age, with its changed conditions of life. In this way the foundation is laid for the dissociation of the personality, and thereby to that conflict which is the real basis of the neuroses. The more the libido is in arrears in practice, the more intense will be the conflict. The traumatic or pathogenic moment is the one which serves best to make this conflict manifest. As Freud showed in his earlier works, one can easily imagine a neurosis arising in this way.

This conception fitted in rather well with the views of Janet, who ascribed neurosis to a certain defect. From this point of view the neurosis could be regarded as a product of retardation in the development of affectivity; and I can easily imagine that this conception must seem selfevident to every one who is inclined to derive the neuroses more or less directly from heredity or congenital degeneration.

The Infantile Sexual Etiology Criticized

Unfortunately the reality is much more complicated. Let me facilitate an insight into these complications by an example of a case of hysteria. It will, I hope, enable me to demonstrate the characteristic complication, so important for the theory of neurosis. You will probably remember the case of the young lady with hysteria, whom I mentioned at the beginning of my lectures. We noticed the remarkable fact that this patient was unaffected by situations which one might have expected to make a profound impression and yet showed an unexpected extreme pathological reaction to a quite everyday event. We took this occasion to express our doubt as to the etiological significance of the shock, and to investigate the so-called predisposition which rendered the trauma effective. The result of that investigation led us to what has just been mentioned, that it is by no means improbable that the origin of the neurosis is due to a retardation of the affective development.

You will now ask me what is to be understood by the retardation of the affectivity of this hysteric. The patient lives in a world of phantasy, which can only be regarded as infantile. It is unnecessary to give a description of these phantasies, for you, as neurologists or psychiatrists, have the opportunity daily to listen to the childish prejudices, illusions and emotional pretensions to which neurotic people give way. The disinclination to face stern reality is the distinguishing trait of these phantasies — some lack of earnestness, some trifling, which sometimes hides real difficulties in a light-hearted manner, at others exaggerates trifles into great troubles. We recognize at once that inadequate psychic attitude towards reality which characterizes the child, its wavering opinions and its deficient orientation in matters of the external world. With such an infantile mental disposition all kinds of desires, phantasies and illusions can grow luxuriantly, and this we have to regard as the critical causation. Through such phantasies people slip into an unreal attitude, preeminently ill-adapted to the world, which is bound some day to lead to a catastrophe.

When we trace back the infantile phantasy of the patient to her earliest childhood we find, it is true, many distinct, outstanding scenes which might well serve to provide fresh food for this or that variation in phantasy, but it would be vain to search for the so-called traumatic motive, whence something abnormal might have sprung, such an abnormal activity, let us say, as day-dreaming itself. There are certainly to be found traumatic scenes, although not in earliest childhood; the few scenes of earliest childhood which were remembered seem not to be traumatic, being rather accidental events, which passed by without leaving any effect on her phantasy worth mentioning. The earliest phantasies arose out of all sorts of vague and only partly understood impressions received from her parents. Many peculiar feelings centered around her father, vacillating between anxiety, horror, aversion, disgust, love and enthusiasm. The case was like so many other cases of hysteria, where no traumatic etiology can be found, but which grows from the roots of a peculiar and premature activity of phantasy which maintains permanently the character of infantilism.

You will object that in this case the scene with the shying horses represents the trauma. It is clearly the model of that night-scene which happened nineteen years later, where the patient was incapable of avoiding the trotting horses. That she wanted to plunge into the river has an analogy in the model scene, where the horses and carriage fell into the river.

Since the latter traumatic moment she suffered from hysterical fits. As I tried to show you, we do not find any trace of this apparent etiology developed in the course of her phantasy life. It seems as if the danger of losing her life, that first time, when the horses shied, passed without leaving any emotional trace. None of the events that occurred in the following years showed any trace of that fright. In parenthesis let me add, that perhaps it never happened at all. It may have even been a mere phantasy, for I have only the assertions of the patient. All of a sudden, some eighteen years later, this event becomes of importance and is, so to say, reproduced and carried out in all its details. This assumption is extremely unlikely, and becomes still more inconceivable if we also bear in mind that the story of the shying horses may not even be true. Be that as it may, it is and remains almost unthinkable that an affect should remain buried for years and then suddenly explode. In other cases there is exactly the same state of affairs. I know, for instance, of a case in which the shock of an earthquake, long recovered from, suddenly came back as a lively fear of earthquakes, although this reminiscence could not be explained by the external circumstances.

The Traumatic Theory — a False Way

It is a very suspicious circumstance that these patients frequently show a pronounced tendency to account for their illnesses by some long-past event, ingeniously withdrawing the attention of the physician from the present moment towards some false track in the past. This false track was the first one pursued by the psychoanalytic theory. To this false hypothesis we owe an insight into the understanding of the neurotic symptoms never before reached, an insight we should not have gained if the investigation had not chosen this path, really guided thither, however, by the misleading tendencies of the patient.

I think that only a man who regards world-happenings as a chain of more or less fortuitous contingencies, and therefore believes that the guiding hand of the reason-endowed pedagogue is permanently wanted, can ever imagine that this path, upon which the patient leads the physician, has been a wrong one, from which one ought to have warned men off with a sign-board. Besides the deeper insight into psychological determination, we owe to the so-called error the discovery of questions of immeasurable importance regarding the basis of psychic processes. It is for us to rejoice and be thankful that Freud had the courage to let himself be guided along this path. Not thus is the progress of science hindered, but rather through blind adherence to a provisional formulation, through the typical conservatism of authority, the vanity of learned men, their fear of making mistakes. This lack of the martyr’s courage is far more injurious to the credit and greatness of scientific knowledge than an honest error.

Retardation of the Emotional Development

But let us return to our own case. The following question arises: If the old trauma is not of etiological significance, then the cause of the manifest neurosis is probably to be found in the retardation of the emotional development. We must therefore disregard the patient’s assertion that her hysterical crises date from the fright from the shying horses, although this fright was in fact the beginning of her evident illness. This event only seems to be important, although it is not so in reality. This same formula is valid for all the so-called shocks. They only seem to be important because they are the starting-point of the external expression of an abnormal condition. As explained in detail, this abnormal condition is an anachronistic continuation of an infantile stage of libido-development. These patients still retain forms of the libido which they ought to have renounced long ago. It is impossible to give a list, as it were, of these forms, for they are of an extraordinary variety. The most common, which is scarcely ever absent, is the excessive activity of phantasies, characterized by an unconcerned exaggeration of subjective wishes. This exaggerated activity is always a sign of want of proper employment of the libido. The libido sticks fast to its use in phantasies, instead of being employed in a more rigorous adaptation to the real conditions of life.

Introversion

This state is called the state of introversion, the libido is used for the psychical inner world instead of being applied to the external world. A regular attendant symptom of this retardation in the emotional development is the so-called parent-complex. If the libido is not used entirely for the adaptation to reality, it is always more or less introverted. The material content of the psychic world is composed of reminiscences, giving it a vividness of activity which in reality long since ceased to pertain thereto. The consequence is, that these patients still live more or less in a world which in truth belongs to the past. They fight with difficulties which once played a part in their life, but which ought to have been obliterated long ago. They still grieve over matters, or rather they are still concerned with matters, which should have long ago lost their importance for them. They divert themselves, or distress themselves, with images which were once normally of importance for them but are of no significance at their later age.

The Complex of the Parents

Amongst those influences most important during childhood, the personalities of the parents play the most potent part. Even if the parents have long been dead, and might and should have lost all real importance, since the life-conditions of the patients are perhaps totally changed, yet these parents are still somehow present and as important as if they were still alive. Love and admiration, resistance, repugnance, hate and revolt, still cling to their figures, transfigured by affection and very often bearing little resemblance to the past reality. It was this fact which forced me to talk no longer of father and mother directly, but to employ instead the term “image” (imago) of mother or of father for these phantasies no longer deal with the real father and the real mother, but with the subjective, and very often completely altered creations of the imagination which prolong an existence only in the patient’s mind.

The complex of the parents’ images, that is to say, the sum of ideas connected with the parents, provides an important field of employment for the introverted libido. I must mention in passing that the complex has in itself but a shadowy existence in so far as it is not invested with libido. Following the usage that we arrived at in the “Diagnostische Associationsstudien,” the word “complex” is used for a system of ideas already invested with, and actuated by, libido. This system exists as a mere possibility, ready for application, if not invested with libido either temporarily or permanently.

The “Nucleus”-Complex. — At the time when the psychoanalytic theory was still under the dominance of the trauma conception and, in conformity with that view, inclined to look for the causa efficiens of the neurosis in the past, the parent-complex seemed to us to be the so-called root-complex — to employ Freud’s term — or nucleus-complex (“Kerncomplex”).

The part which the parents played seemed to be so highly determining that we were inclined to attribute to them all later complications in the life of the patient. Some years ago I discussed this view in my article “Die Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des Einzelnen.” (The importance of the father for the fate of the individual.)

Here also we were guided by the patient’s tendency to revert to the past, in accordance with the direction of his introverted libido. Now indeed it was no longer the external, accidental event which caused the pathogenic effect, but a psychological effect which seemed to arise out of the individual’s difficulties in adapting himself to the conditions of his familiar surroundings. It was especially the disharmony between the parents on the one hand and between the child and the parents on the other which seemed favorable for creating currents in the child little compatible with his individual course of life. In the article just alluded to I have described some instances, taken from a wealth of material, which show these characteristics very distinctly. The influence of the parents does not come to an end, alas, with their neurotic descendants’ blame of the family circumstances, or their false education, as the basis of their illness, but it extends even to certain actual events in the life and actions of the patient, where such a determining influence could not have been expected. The lively imitativeness which we find in savages as well as in children can produce in certain rather sensitive children a peculiar inner and unconscious identification with the parents; that is to say, such a similar mental attitude that effects in real life are sometimes produced which, even in detail, resemble the personal experiences of the parents. For the empirical material here, I must refer you to the literature. I should like to remind you that one of my pupils, Dr. Emma Fürst, produced valuable experimental proofs for the solution of this problem, to which I referred in my lecture at Clark University. In applying association experiments to whole families, Dr. Fürst established the great resemblance of reaction-type among all the members of one family.

These experiments show that there very often exists an unconscious parallelism of association between parents and children, to be explained as an intense imitation or identification.

The results of these investigations show far-reaching psychological tendencies in parallel directions, which readily explain at times the astonishing conformity in their destinies. Our destinies are as a rule the result of our psychological tendencies. These facts allow us to understand why, not only the patient, but even the theory which has been built on such investigations, expresses the view, that the neurosis is the result of the characteristic influence of the parents upon their children. This view, moreover, is supported by the experiences which lie at the basis of pedagogy: namely the assumption of the plasticity of the child’s mind, which is freely compared with soft wax.

We know that the first impressions of childhood accompany us throughout life, and that certain educational influences may restrain people undisturbed all their lives within certain limits. It is no miracle, indeed it is rather a frequent experience, that under these circumstances a conflict has to break out between the personality which is formed by the educational and other influences of the infantile milieu and that one which can be described as the real individual line of life. With this conflict all people must meet, who are called upon to live an independent and productive life.

Owing to the enormous influence of childhood on the later development of character, you can perfectly understand why we are inclined to ascribe the cause of a neurosis directly to the influences of the infantile environment. I have to confess that I have known cases in which any other explanation seemed to be less reasonable. There are indeed parents whose own contradictory neurotic behavior causes them to treat their children in such an unreasonable way that the latter’s deterioration and illness would seem to be unavoidable. Hence it is almost a rule among nerve-specialists to remove neurotic children, whenever possible, from the dangerous family atmosphere, and to send them among more healthy influences, where, without any medical treatment, they thrive much better than at home. There are many neurotic patients who were clearly neurotic as children, and who have never been free from illness. For such cases, the conception which has been sketched holds generally good.

This knowledge, which seems to be provisionally definitive, has been extended by the studies of Freud and the psychoanalytic school. The relations between the patients and their parents have been studied in detail in as much as these relations were regarded as of etiological significance.

Infantile Mental Attitude

It was soon noticed that such patients lived still partly or wholly in their childhood-world, although quite unconscious themselves of this fact. It is a difficult task for psychoanalysis so exactly to investigate the psychological mode of adaptation of the patients as to be capable of putting its finger on the infantile misunderstanding. We find among neurotics many who have been spoiled as children. These cases give the best and clearest example of the infantilism of their psychological mode of adaptation. They start out in life expecting the same friendly reception, tenderness and easy success, obtained with no trouble, to which they have been accustomed by their parents in their youth. Even very intelligent patients are not capable of seeing at once that they owe the complications of their life and their neurosis to the trail of their infantile emotional attitude. The small world of the child, the familiar surroundings — these form the model of the big world. The more intensely the family has stamped the child, the more will it be inclined, as an adult, instinctively to see again in the great world its former small world. Of course this must not be taken as a conscious intellectual process. On the contrary, the patient feels and sees the difference between now and then, and tries to adapt himself as well as he can. Perhaps he will even believe himself perfectly adapted, for he grasps the situation intellectually, but that does not prevent the emotional from being far behind the intellectual standpoint.

Unconscious Phantasy

It is unnecessary to trouble you with instances of this phenomenon. It is an every-day experience that our emotions are never at the level of our reasoning. It is exactly the same with such a patient, only with greater intensity. He may perhaps believe that, save for his neurosis, he is a normal person, and hence adapted to the conditions of life. He does not suspect that he has not relinquished certain childish pretensions, that he still carries with him, in the background, expectations and illusions which he has never rendered conscious to himself. He cultivates all sorts of favorite phantasies, which seldom become conscious, or at any rate, not very often, so that he himself does not know that he has them. They very often exist only as emotional expectations, hopes, prejudices, etc. We call these phantasies, unconscious phantasies. Sometimes they dip into the peripheral consciousness as quite fugitive thoughts, which disappear again a moment later, so that the patient is unable to say whether he had such phantasies or not. It is only during the psychoanalytic treatment that most patients learn to observe and retain these fleeting thoughts. Although most of the phantasies, once at least, have been conscious in the form of fleeting thoughts and only afterwards became unconscious, we have no right to call them on that account “conscious,” as they are practically most of the time unconscious. It is therefore right to designate them “unconscious phantasies.” Of course there are also infantile phantasies, which are perfectly conscious and which can be reproduced at any time.

Chapter V
The Unconscious

The sphere of the unconscious infantile phantasies has become the real object of psychoanalytic investigation. As we have previously pointed out, this domain seems to retain the key to the etiology of neurosis. In contradistinction with the trauma theory, we are forced by the reasons already adduced to seek in the family history for the basis of our present psychoanalytic attitude. Those phantasy-systems which patients exhibit on mere questioning are for the most part composed and elaborated like a novel or a drama. Although they are greatly elaborated, they are relatively of little value for the investigation of the unconscious. Just because they are conscious, they have already deferred over-much to the claims of etiquette and social morality. Hence they have been purged of all personally painful and ugly details, and are presentable to society, revealing very little. The valuable, and much more important phantasies are not conscious in the sense already defined, but are to be discovered through the technique of psychoanalysis.

Without wishing to enter fully into the question of technique, I must here meet an objection that is constantly heard. It is that the so-called unconscious phantasies are only suggested to the patient and only exist in the minds of psychoanalysts. This objection belongs to that common class which ascribes to them the crude mistakes of beginners. I think only those without psychological experience and without historical psychological knowledge are capable of making such criticisms. With a mere glimmering of mythological knowledge, one cannot fail to notice the striking parallels between the unconscious phantasies discovered by the psychoanalytic school and mythological images. The objection that our knowledge of mythology has been suggested to the patient is groundless, for the psychoanalytic school first discovered the unconscious phantasies, and only then became acquainted with mythology. Mythology itself is obviously something outside the path of the medical man. In so far as these phantasies are unconscious, the patient of course knows nothing about their existence, and it would be absurd to make direct inquiries about them.