when we consider that this bitterness of the patient falls alike
on the ego itself and on the object of its love and hate. In melan-
cholia as well as in other narcistic conditions a feature of
emotional life is strikingly shown which, since the time of
Bleuler, we have been accustomed to designate as ambivalence.
By this we mean that hostile and affectionate feelings are di-
rected against one and the same person. I have, in the course
of these discussions, unfortunately not been in a position to tell
you more about this emotional ambivalence.
We have, in addition to narcistic identification, an hysterical
identification as well, which moreover has been known to us for a
much longer time. I wish it were possible to determine clearly
the difference between the two. Of the periodic and cyclic forms
of melancholia I can tell you something that you will certainly
be glad to hear, for it is possible, under favorable circum-
stances I have twice had the experience to prevent these
emotional conditions (or their antitheses) by means of analytic
treatment in the free intervals between the attacks. We learn
370 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
that in melancholia as well as in mania, it is a matter of finding
a special way for solving the conflict, the prerequisites for which
entirely coincide with those of other neuroses. You can imagine
how much there still is for psychoanalysis to learn in this field.
I told you, too, that we hoped to gain a knowledge of the struc-
ture of the ego, and of the separate factors out of which it is
built by means of the analysis of narcistic conditions. In one
place we have already made a beginning. From the analysis
of the maniacal delusion of being watched we concluded that in
the ego there is really an agent which continually watches,
criticizes and compares the other part of the ego and thus
opposes it. We believe that the patient imparts to us a truth
that is not yet sufficiently appreciated, when he complains that
all his actions are spied upon and watched, all his thoughts
recorded and criticized. He errs only in transferring this dis-
tressing force to something alien, outside of himself. He feels
the dominance of a factor in his ego, which compares his actual
ego and all of its activities to an ideal ego that he has created
in the course of his development. We also believe that the
creation of this ideal ego took place with the purpose of again
establishing that self-satisfaction which is bound up with the
original infantile narcism, but which since then has experienced
so many disturbances and disparagements. In this self -observing
agent we recognize the ego-censor, the conscience ; it is the same
factor which at night exercises dream-censorship, and which
creates the suppressions against inadmissible wish-impulses.
Under analysis in the maniacal delusion of being watched it
reveals its origin in the influence of parents, tutors and social
environment and in the identification of the ego with certain
of these model individuals.
These are some of the conclusions which the application of
psychoanalysis to narcistic conditions has yielded us. They are
certainly all too few, and they often lack that accuracy which
can only be acquired in a new field with the attainment of abso-
lute familiarity. We owe them all to the exploitation of the con-
ception of ego-libido or narcistic libido, by the aid of which we
have extended to narcistic neuroses those observations which were
confirmed in the transference neuroses. But now you will ask,
is it possible for us to succeed in subordinating all the dis-
turbances of narcistic conditions and the psychoses to the libido
The Libido Theory and Narcism 371
theory in such a way that in every case we recognize the libidin-
ous factor of psychic life as the cause of the malady, and never
make an abnormality in the functioning of the instincts of self-
preservation answerable ? Ladies and gentlemen, this conclusion
does not seem urgent to me, and above all not ripe for decision.
We can best leave it calmly to the progress of the science. I
should not be surprised to find that the power to exert a patho-
genic influence is really an exclusive prerogative of the libidinous
impulses, and that the libido theory will celebrate its triumphs
along the whole line from the simplest true neurosis to the most
difficult psychotic derangement of the individual. For we know
it to be a characteristic of the libido that it is continually strug-
gling against subordinating itself to the realities of the world.
But I consider it most probable that the ego instincts are
indirectly swept along by the pathogenic excitations of the libido
and forced into a functional disturbance. Moreover, I cannot
see any defeat for our trend of investigation when we are con-
fronted with the admission that in difficult psychoses the ego
impulses themselves are fundamentally led astray; the future
will teach us or at least it will teach you. Let me return for
one moment more to fear, in order to eliminate one last am-
biguity that we have left. We have said that the relation be-
tween fear and the libido, which, in other respects seems clearly
denned, does not fit in with the assumption that in the face of
danger real fear should become the expression of the instinct of
self-preservation. This, however, can hardly be doubted. But
suppose the emotion of fear is not contested by the egoistic ego
impulse, but rather by the ego-libido ? The condition of fear is
in all cases purposeless and its lack of purpose is obvious when
it reaches a higher level. It then disturbs the action, be it flight
or defense, which alone is purposeful, and which serves the ends
of self-preservation. If we accredit the emotional component
of actual fear to the ego-libido, and the accompanying activity
to the egoistic instinct to self-preservation, we have overcome
every theoretical difficulty. Furthermore, you do not really be-
lieve that we flee "because we experience fear ? On the contrary,
we first are afraid and then take to flight from the same motive
that is awakened by the realization of danger. Men who have
survived the endangering of their lives tell us that they were
not at all afraid, they only acted. They turned the weapon
against the wild animal, and that was in fact the most purposeful
thinfif to do.
TWENTY-SEVENTH LECTURE
GENERAL THEORY OP THE NEUROSES
Transference
WE ARE nearing the close of our discussions, and
you probably cherish certain expectations, which
shall not be disappointed. You think, I suppose,
that I have not guided you through thick and thin
of psychoanalytic subject matter to dismiss you without a word
about therapy, which furnishes the only possibility of carrying
on psychoanalysis. I cannot possibly omit this subject, for the
observation of some of its aspects will teach you a new fact,
without which the understanding of the diseases we have exam-
ined would be most incomplete.
I know that you do not expect any guidance in the technique
of practising analysis for therapeutic purposes. You wish to
know only along what general lines psychoanalytic therapy works
and approximately what it accomplishes. And you have an
undeniable right to know this. I shall not actually tell you,
however, but shall insist that you guess it yourselves.
Only think! You know everything essential, from the con-
ditions which precipitate the illness to all the factors at work
within. Where is there room for therapeutic influence ? In the
first place, there is hereditary disposition; we do not speak of
it often because it is strongly emphasized from another quarter,
and we have nothing new to say about it. But do not think that
we underestimate it. Just because we are therapeutists, we feel
its power distinctly. At any rate, we cannot change it; it is a
given fact which erects a barrier to our efforts. In the second
place, there is the influence of the early experiences of childhood,
which are in the habit of becoming sharply emphasized under
analysis; they belong to the past and we cannot undo them.
And then everything that we include in the term "actual for-
bearance " misfortunes of life out of which privations of love
372
Transference 373
arise, poverty, family discord, unfortunate choice in marriage,
unfavorable social conditions and the severity of moral claims.
These would certainly offer a foothold for very effectual therapy.
But it would have to be the kind of therapy which, according
to the Viennese folk-tale, Emperor Joseph practiced: the bene-
ficial interference of a potentate, before whose will men bow
and difficulties vanish. But who are we, to include such charity
in the methods of our therapy? Poor as we are, powerless in
society, forced to earn our living by practicing medicine, we are
not even in a position to treat free of charge those patients who
are unable to pay, as physicians who employ other methods of
treatment can do. Our therapy is too long drawn-out, too ex-
tended for that. But perhaps you are still holding to one of the
factors already mentioned, and think that you have found a
factor through which our influence may be effective. If the
restrictions of morality which are imposed by society have a
share in the privation forced upon the patient, treatment might
give him the courage, or possibly even the prescription itself,
to cross these barriers, might tell him how gratification and
health can be secured in the renunciation of that ideal which
society has held up to us but often disregards. One grows
healthy then, by giving one's sexuality full reign. Such analytic
treatment, however, would be darkened by a shadow ; it does not
serve our recognized morality. The gain to the individual is a
loss to society.
But, ladies and gentlemen, who has misinformed you to this
degree? It is inconceivable that the advice to give one's sexu-
ality full reign can play a part in analytic therapy, if only
from the circumstance we have ourselves described, that there
is going on within the patient a bitter conflict between libidinous
impulse and sexual suppression, between sensual and ascetic
tendencies. This conflict is not abolished by giving one of these
tendencies the victory over its opponent. We see that in the
case of the nervous, asceticism has retained the upper hand.
The consequence of this is that the suppressed sexual desire gains
breathing space by the development of symptoms. If, on the
other hand, we were to give the victory to sexuality, symptoms
would have to replace the sexual suppression, which has been
pushed aside. Neither of the two decisions can end the inner
conflict, one part always remains unsatisfied. There are only a
374 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
few cases wherein the conflict is so labile, that a factor such as
the intervention of the physician could be decisive, and these
cases really require no analytic treatment. Persons who can be
so much influenced by a physician would have found some solu-
tion without him. You know that when an abstinent young man
decides upon illegitimate sex-intercourse, or when an unsatisfied
woman seeks compensation from another man, they have gener-
ally not waited for the permission of a physician, far less of
an analyst, to do this.
In studying the situation, one essential point is generally over-
looked, that the pathogenic conflict of the neurotic must not be
confused with normal struggles between psychic impulses of
which all have their root in the same psychological soil. The
neurotic struggle is a strife of forces, one of which has attained
the level of the fore-conscious and the conscious, while the other
has been held back in the unconscious stage. That is why the
conflict can have no outcome; the struggling parties approach
each other as little as in the well-known instance of the polar-
bear and the whale. A real decision can be reached only if both
meet on the same ground. To accomplish this is, I believe, the
sole task of therapy.
Moreover, I assure you that you are misinformed if you as-
sume that advice and guidance in the affairs of life is an integral
part of the analytic influence. On the contrary, we reject this
role of the mentor as far as possible. Above all, we wish to
attain independent decisions on the part of the patient. With
this intention in mind, we require him to postpone all vital
resolutions such as choice of a career, marriage or divorce, until
the close of the treatment. You must confess that this is not
what you had imagined. It is only in the case of certain very
young or entirely helpless persons that we cannot insist upon
the desired limitation. Here we must combine the function of
physician and educator ; we are well aware of the responsibility
and behave with the necessary precaution.
Judging from the zeal with which I defend myself against
the accusation that analytic treatment urges the nervous person
to give his sexuality full reign, you must not gather that we
influence him for the benefit of conventional morality. We are
just as far removed from that. We are no reformers, it is true,
only observers, but we cannot help observing with critical eyes,
Transference 375
and we have found it impossible to take the part of conventional
sex morality, or to estimate highly the way in which society has
tried to regulate the problems of sexual life in practice. We can
prove to society mathematically that its code of ethics has
exacted more sacrifices than is its worth, and that its procedure
rests neither on veracity nor wisdom. We cannot spare our
patients the task of listening to this criticism. We accustom
them to weigh sexual matters, as well as others, without pre-
judice; and when, after the completion of the cure, they have
become independent and choose some intermediate course be-
tween unrestrained sexuality and asceticism, our conscience is
not burdened by the consequences. We tell ourselves: whoever
has been succssfully educated in being true to himself is perma-
nently protected against the danger of immorality, even if his
moral standard diverges from that of society. Let us, moreover,
be careful not to overestimate the significance of the problem
of abstinence with respect to its influence on neuroses. Only the
minority of pathogenic situations of forbearance, with a subse-
quent condition of pent-up libido, can be resolved without more
ado by such sexual intercourse as can be procured with little
trouble.
And so you cannot explain the therapeutic influence of psy-
choanalysis by saying that it simply recommends giving full
sway to sexuality. You must seek another solution. I think that
while I was refuting this supposition of yours, one of my re-
marks put you on the right track. Our usefulness consists in
replacing the unconscious by the conscious, in translating the
unconscious into the conscious. You are right; that is exactly
it. By projecting the unconscious into the conscious, we do away
with suppressions, we remove conditions of symptom formation
and transform a pathogenic into a normal conflict which can
be decided in some way or other. This is the only psychic change
we produce in our patients ; its extent is the extent of our help-
fulness. Wherever no suppression and no analogous psychic
process can be undone, there is no place for our therapy.
We can express the aim of our efforts by various formulae of
rendering the unconscious conscious, removing suppressions, fill-
ing out amnestic gaps it all amounts to the same thing. But
perhaps this admission does not satisfy you. You imagined that
when a nervous person became cured something very different
376 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
happened, that after having been subjected to the laborious
process of psychoanalysis, he was transformed into a different
human being. And now I tell you that the entire result is only
that he has a little less of the unconscious, a little more of the
conscious within him. Well, you probably underestimate the
significance of such an inner change. The person cured of
neurosis has really become another human being. Funda-
mentally, of course, he has remained the same. That is to say,
he has only become what he might have been under the most
favorable conditions. But that is saying a great deal. When
you learn all that has to be done, the effort required to effect
apparently so slight a change in psychic life, the significance
of such a difference in the psychic realm will be credible to you.
I shall digress for a moment to ask whether you know what
is meant by a causal therapy? This name is given to the pro-
cedure which does not take the manifestations of disease for its
point of departure, but seeks to remove the causes of disease.
Is our psychoanalytical therapy causal or not? The answer is
not simple, but perhaps it will give us the opportunity of con-
vincing ourselves that this point of departure is comparatively
fruitless. In so far as analytical therapy does not concern
itself immediately with the removal of symptoms, it may be
termed causal. Yet in another respect, you might say this
would hardly follow. For we have followed the causal chain
back far beyond the suppressions to the instinctive tendencies
and their relative intensity as given by the constitution of the
patient, and finally the nature of the digression in the abnormal
process of its development. Assume for a moment that it were
possible to influence these functions chemically, to increase or
to decrease the quantity of the libido that happens to be present,
to strengthen one impulse at the expense of another. This
would be causal therapy in its true sense and our analysis
would have furnished the indispensable preparatory work of
reconnaissance. You know that there is as yet no possibility
of so influencing the processes of the libido. Our psychic therapy
interposes elsewhere, not exactly at those sources of the phe-
nomena which have been disclosed to us, but sufficiently far be-
yond the symptoms, at an opening in the structure of the
disease which has become accessible to us by means of peculiar
conditions.
Transference 377
What must we do in order to replace the unconscious by the
conscious in our patient? At one time we thought this was
quite simple, that all we had to do was to reconstruct the un-
conscious and then tell the patient about it. But we already
know this was a shortsighted error. Our knowledge of the un-
conscious has not the same value as his ; if we communicate our
knowledge to him it will not stand in place of the unconscious
within him, but will exist beside it, and only a very small change
will have been effected. "We must rather think of the un-
conscious as localized, and must seek it in memory at the point
where it came into existence by means of a suppression. This
suppression must be removed before the substitution of the con-
scious for the unconscious can be successfully effected. How
can such a suppression be removed? Here our task enters a
second phase. First to find the suppression, then to remove the
resistance by which this suppression is maintained.
How can we do away with resistance? In the same way by
reconstructing it and confronting the patient with it. For re-
sistance arises from suppression, from the very suppression
which we are trying to break up, or from an earlier one. It has
been established by the counter-attack that was instigated to
suppress the offensive impulse. And so now we do the very
thing we intended at the outset: interpret, reconstruct, com-
municate but now we do it in the right place. The counter-
seizure of the idea or resistance is not part of the unconscious
but of the ego, which is our fellow-worker. This holds true even
if resistance is not conscious. We know that the difficulty arises
from the ambiguity of the word ' ' unconscious, ' ' which may con,
note either a phenomenon or a system. That seems very diffi-
cult, but it is only a repetition, isn't it? We were prepared
for it a long time ago. We expect resistance to be relinquished,
the counter-siege to collapse, when our interpretation has
enabled the ego to recognize it. With what impulses are we able
to work in such a case? In the first place, the patient's desire
to become well, which has led him to accommodate himself to co-
operate with us in the task of the cure ; in the second place, the
help of his intelligence, which is supported by the interpretation
we offer him. There is no doubt that after we have made clear
to him what he may expect, the patient's intelligence can identify
resistances, and find their translation into the suppressions more
378 Introduction to Psychoanalysis
readily. If I say to you, ' ' Look up into the sky, you can see a
balloon there," you will find it more readily than if I had just
asked you to look up to see whether you could discover anything.
And unless the student who for the first time works with a
microscope is told by his teacher what he may look for, he will
not see anything, even if it is present and quite visible.
And now for the fact! In a large number of forms of
nervous illness, in hysteria, conditions of anxiety and compulsion
neuroses, one hypothesis is correct. By finding the suppression,
revealing resistance, interpreting the thing suppressed, we really
succeed in solving the problem, in overcoming resistance, in
removing suppression, in transforming the unconscious into the
conscious. While doing this we gain the clearest impression of
the violent struggle that takes place in the patient's soul for
the subjugation of resistance a normal psychological struggle,
in one psychic sphere between the motives that wish to maintain
the counter-siege and those which are willing to give it up.
The former are the old motives that at one time effected sup-
pression ; among the latter are those that have recently entered
the conflict, to decide it, we trust, in the sense we favor. We
have succeeded in reviving the old conflict of the suppression,
in reopening the case that had already been decided. The new
material we contribute consists in the first place of the warning,
that the former solution of the conflict had led to illness, and
the promise that another will pave the way to health ; secondly,
the powerful change of all conditions since the time of that first
rejection. At that time the ego had been weak, infantile and
may have had reason to denounce the claims of the libido as
if they were dangerous. Today it is strong, experienced and is
supported by the assistance of the physician. And so we may
expect to guide the revived conflict to a better issue than a sup-
pression, and in hysteria, fear and compulsion neuroses, as I
have said before, success justifies our claims.
There are other forms of illness, however, in which our thera-
peutic procedure never is successful, even though the causal
conditions are similar. Though this may be characterized
topically in a different way, in them there was also an original
conflict between the ego and libido, which led to supression.
Here, too, it is possible to discover the occasions when suppres-
sions occurred in the life of the patient. We employ the same
Transference 379
procedure, are prepared to furnish the same promises, give the
game kind of help. We again present to the patient the con-
nections we expect him to discover, and we have in our favor
the same interval in time between the treatment and these sup-
pressions favoring a solution of the conflict ; yet in spite of these
conditions, we are not able to overcome the resistance, or to re-
move the suppression. These patients, suffering from paranoia,
melancholia, and dementia praecox, remain untouched on the
whole, and proof against psychoanalytic therapy. What is the
reason for this? It is not lack of intelligence; we require, of
course, a certain amount of intellectual ability in our patients;
but those suffering from paranoia, for instance, who effect such
subtle combinations of facts, certainly are not in want of it. Nor
can we say that other motive forces are lacking. Patients suf-
fering from melancholia, in contrast to those afflicted with
paranoia, are profoundly conscious of being ill, of suffering
greatly, but they are not more accessible. Here we are con-
fronted with a fact we do not understand, which bids us doubt
if we have really understood all the conditions of success in
other neuroses.
In the further consideration of our dealings with hysterical
and compulsion neurotics we soon meet with a second fact, for
which we were not at all prepared. After a while we notice that
these patients behave toward us in a very peculiar way. We