Concept
Countercathexis
In Freud's economic account of defence, the energy the ego invests in ideas, attitudes or a watchful attention so as to bar the way back to consciousness for repressed ideas and impulses. Because the repressed drive presses continuously, repression is not a single act but requires this constant expenditure, which the analyst meets as resistance. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926) Freud distinguishes an internal form, the alteration of the ego by reaction formation typical of obsessional neurosis, from an external form, directed against dangerous perceptions, typical of hysteria and the phobias.
- Broader concept
- Defense
- Key works
- 1
- Related
- Reaction formation
gave rise to
- Reaction formation 1926 In the addenda to Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety Freud presents reaction formation as the form countercathexis takes in obsessional neurosis: an internal countercathexis that alters the ego, as against the external countercathexis of hysteria and phobia, which is turned against dangerous perceptions.