Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud [16 (1916-1917)] 0 7012 0067 7

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THE STANDARD EDITION OF THE COMPLETE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKS OF SIGMUND FREUD

VOLUME

XVI

T H E STANDARD EDITION OF THE COMPLETE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKS OF

S

I

G

M

U

N

D

F

R

E

U

D

Translatedfrom the German under the General Editorship of JAMES

STRACHEY

In Collaboration with ANNA

FREUD

Assisted by A L I X STRACHEY and ALAN TYSON VOLUME

XVI

(1916-1917) Introductory Lectures

on

Psycho-Analysis (PART I I I )

LONDON THE

HOGARTH

PRESS

AND THE INSTITUTE OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

PUBLISHED BY THE HOGARTH PRESS LIMITED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD, LONDON * CLARKE, IRWIN AND CO. LTD. TORONTO . 4 5

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f.h \°&7 A V>

This EditionfirstPublished in '963 Reprinted 1964, 1368, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1978 and 1981

ISBN O 7012 OO67 7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of The Hogarth Press Ltd. TRANSLATION AND EDITORIAL MATTER © THE INSTITUTE OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND ANGELA RICHARDS I963 PRINTED AND BOUND IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD., FROME

CONTENTS VOLUME

SIXTEEN

INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS (1916-1917 [1915-1917]) PART III. GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES (1917 [1916-17]) Lecture XVI

Psycho-Analysis and Psychiatry

XVII

The Sense of Symptoms

257

XVIII

Fixation to Traumas—The Unconscious

273

XIX

Resistance and Repression

286

XX

The Sexual Life of Human Beings

page 243

XXIII

303 The Development of the Libido and the Sexual Organizations 320 Some Thoughts on Development and Regression— Aetiology 339 The Paths to the Formation of Symptoms 358

XXIV

The Common Neurotic State

378

XXV

Anxiety

392

XXVI

The Libido Theory and Narcissism

412

XXVII

Transference

431

XXVIII

Analytic Therapy

448

XXI XXII

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND AUTHOR INDEX

464

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

477

INDEX OF PARAPRAXES

478

INDEX OF DREAMS

480

INDEX OF SYMBOLS

481

GENERAL INDEX

483

PART GENERAL

III

T H E O R Y OF THE (1917 [1916-17])

NEUROSES

LECTURE PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

XVI

AND

PSYCHIATRY

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I a m delighted t o see you again,

at the beginning of a new academic year, for a resumption of our discussions. Last year I spoke to you of the way in which psycho-analysis deals with parapraxes and dreams. This year I should like to introduce you to an understanding of the phenomena of neurosis, which, as you will soon learn, have a great deal in common with both of the others. But I must warn you in advance that I shall not be able to offer you the same position in relation to me this year as I did last year. At that time I set great store on never taking a step without remaining in agreement with your judgement; I discussed a great deal with you and gave way to your objections—in fact I recognized you and your 'common sense' as a deciding factor. But this is no longer possible and for a simple reason. Parapraxes and dreams were not unfamiliar to you as phenomena; we might say that you had as much experience or could easily obtain as much experience of them as I had. The region of the phenomena of neurosis is, however, strange to you; in so far as you are not doctors yourselves, you have no other access to them than through what I have to tell you; and of what help is the best judgement if it is not accompanied by familiarity with the material that is to be judged? But you must not take this warning of mine to mean that I propose to give you dogmatic lectures and to insist on your unqualified belief. Such a misunderstanding would do me a grave injustice. I do not wish to arouse conviction; I wish to stimulate thought and to upset prejudices. If as a result of lack of knowledge of the material you are not in a position to form a judgement, you should neither believe nor reject. You should listen and allow what I tell you to work on you. It is not so easy to arrive at convictions, or, if they are reached easily, they soon turn out to be worthless and incapable of resistance. The only person who has a right to a conviction is someone who, like me, has worked for many years at the same material and who, in 243

244

GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES

doing so, has himself had the same new and surprising experiences. What is the good, then, in the sphere of the intellect, of these sudden convictions, these lightning-like conversions, these instantaneous rejections? Is it not clear that the 'coup defoudre', love at first sight, is derived from quite another sphere, from that of the emotions? We do not even require of our patients that they should bring a conviction of the truth of psycho-analysis into the treatment or be adherents of it. Such an attitude often raises our suspicions. The attitude that we find the most desirable in them is a benevolent scepticism. So you too should endeavour to allow the psycho-analytic view to grow up quietly in you alongside of the popular or psychiatric one, till opportunities arise for the two to influence each other, to compete with each other and to unite in leading to a conclusion. O n the other hand, you should not for a moment suppose that what I put before you as the psycho-analytic view is a speculative system. I t is on the contrary empirical—either a direct expression of observations or the outcome of a process of working them over. Whether this working-over has been carried out in an adequate and justifiable manner will appear in the course of the further advance of the science, and indeed I may assert without boasting, after a lapse of nearly twenty-five years, and having reached a fairly advanced age, 1 that these observations are the result of particularly hard, concentrated and deepgoing work. I have often had an impression that our opponents were unwilling to take any account of this origin of our theses, as though they thought what was in question were merely subjectively determined notions to which someone else might oppose others of his own choice. This behaviour of our opponents is not entirely intelligible to me. It may perhaps be due to the fact that, as a doctor, one usually makes so little contact with neurotic patients and pays so little attention to what they say that one cannot imagine the possibility that anything valuable could be derived from their communications—the possibility, that is, of carrying out any thorough observations upon them. I take this opportunity of assuring you that in the course of these lectures I shall indulge in very little controversy, especially with individuals. I have never been able to convince myself of 1 [Freud was about 60 at this time.]

XVI. PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PSYCHIATRY

245

the truth of the maxim that strife is the father of all things. I believe it is derived from the Greek sophists and is at fault, like them, through overvaluing dialectics. It seems to me, on the contrary, that what is known as scientific controversy is on the whole quite unproductive, apart from the fact that it is almost always conducted on highly personal lines. U p to a few years ago I was able to boast that I had only once engaged in a regular scientific dispute—with one single worker (Lowenfeld of Munich). 1 I t ended in our becoming friends and we have remained so to this day. But I did not repeat the experiment for a long time, as I did not feel sure that the outcome would be the same. 2 Now you will no doubt conclude that a rejection such as this of all written discussion argues a high degree of inaccessibility to objections, of obstinacy, or, to use the polite colloquial scientific term, of pig-headedness [Verranntheit]. I should like to say in reply that when once, after such hard work, one has arrived at a conviction, one has at the same time acquired a certain right to retain that conviction with some tenacity. I may also urge that in the course of my work I have modified my views on a few important points, changed them and replaced them by fresh ones—and in each case, of course, I have made this publicly known. And the outcome of this frankness? Some people have taken no notice whatever of my self-corrections and continue to this day to criticize me for hypotheses which have long ceased to have the same meaning for me. Others reproach me precisely for these changes and regard me as untrustworthy on their account. Of course! a person who has occasionally changed his opinions is deserving of no belief at all, since he has made it all too likely that his latest assertions may also be mistaken; but a person who has unflinchingly maintained what he once asserted, or who cannot be quickly enough persuaded to give it up, must naturally be pig-headed or stubborn! What 1 [This was on the subject of Freud's early theories on anxiety. His second paper on the question (1895/) was entirely concerned with Lowenfeld's criticisms. Lowenfeld himself, though never an adherent to Freud's views, ultimately became much more favourable to them. Cf. the Editor's Note to that paper, Standard Ed., 3, 121.] ! [There is an allusion in this to Freud's much more recent controversies with Adler and Jung, especially in his 'History of the PsychoAnalytic Movement' (1914