Concept
Displacement
Emotional intensity shifted from a significant idea to an indifferent one.
Read more- Broader concept
- Dream-work
- Introduced by
- Sigmund Freud
- Key works
- 3
- Related
- Metonymy
introduced by
- Sigmund Freud 1900 In Die Traumdeutung Freud describes displacement (Verschiebung) as the second great operation of the dream-work: psychical intensity is shifted from the essential dream-thoughts onto indifferent elements, so that the dream is centred elsewhere than its latent content, a distortion he attributes to the censorship.
developed by
- Sigmund Freud 1905 Carries displacement over from the dream to hysterical symptom formation: Dora’s disgust and the pressure she feels on her chest are sensations displaced from the genitals, from the lower body to the upper, and the jewel-case of her first dream is read as a product of condensation and displacement.
gave rise to
- Metonymy 1957 Lacan reads Freud's displacement (Verschiebung) in the dream-work as metonymy: the shift of significance from one element to the next along the chain, which the unconscious uses to evade censorship. Condensation he reads in the same way as metaphor.