Book
Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety
Hemmung, Symptom und Angst
Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (Hemmung, Symptom und Angst), published in 1926 by the Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, is Freud's major revision of his theory of anxiety and his first systematic account of defence within the structural model of ego, id and super-ego set out in The Ego and the Id (1923). The book opens by distinguishing inhibition, a restriction of an ego function undertaken as a precaution or through an impoverishment of energy, from the symptom, the sign and substitute of an instinctual satisfaction that has not taken place and the result of repression. Its central move reverses Freud's earlier view that repressed libido is transformed directly into anxiety. Re-examining the animal phobias of Little Hans and the Wolf Man, he concludes that in both the motive force of repression was castration anxiety, the ego's fear of an external danger: anxiety makes repression, not repression anxiety. The ego is the sole seat of anxiety. It produces anxiety as a signal when it anticipates danger, and through the pleasure principle the signal enables it to inhibit the threatening process in the id. Anxiety is traced to a situation of helplessness before mounting excitation, of which birth is the prototype. Freud separates the traumatic situation, in which anxiety arises automatically, as in the actual neuroses, from the danger situation, in which the ego reproduces a weakened form of it as a warning. The danger situations form a developmental series, each tied to a phase: psychical helplessness in the immature ego, loss of the object in early childhood, castration in the phallic phase, the super-ego's anger and loss of its love in latency, and finally the fear of death, read as the super-ego projected onto the powers of fate. Neurosis arises where people go on reacting to danger situations long outgrown; symptoms are formed to remove the ego from the danger situation that anxiety signals. Neurotic anxiety is anxiety about an instinctual danger the ego does not know, as realistic anxiety is about a known one. The book compares symptom formation in phobia, conversion hysteria and obsessional neurosis. In obsessional neurosis, regression to the anal-sadistic stage, a severe super-ego and reaction formations shape the symptoms, and Freud describes undoing and isolation as defensive techniques beside repression. He reinstates 'defence' as the general term for all the ego's protective techniques, repression being one of them. He discusses Otto Rank's The Trauma of Birth (1924), crediting it with linking every danger situation to separation from the mother but rejecting the claim that the severity of the birth trauma decides who becomes neurotic; he names instead the long helplessness of the human infant, the interruption of sexual development between early childhood and puberty, and the ego's imperfect means of guarding against internal danger. The addenda distinguish five kinds of resistance and separate anxiety, the reaction to the danger that object loss brings, from pain, the reaction to the loss itself, and from mourning.
Main ideas
- Inhibition is a restriction of an ego function, undertaken as a precaution, to avoid conflict with the id or the super-ego, or through an impoverishment of energy; a symptom is the sign and substitute of an instinctual satisfaction that did not take place, the product of repression.
- The ego is the sole seat of anxiety. It produces anxiety as a signal of anticipated danger, and the signal, acting through the pleasure principle, gives it the power to inhibit processes in the id.
- Anxiety makes repression, not repression anxiety: in Little Hans and the Wolf Man the motive of repression was castration anxiety, and the phobic anxiety was that castration anxiety displaced onto an animal.
- Freud abandons the thesis that repressed libido is transformed directly into anxiety, keeping it only as a description; automatic anxiety from undischarged excitation survives in the actual neuroses.
- Anxiety originates in a traumatic situation of helplessness before mounting excitation, of which birth is the prototype; in a danger situation the ego anticipates that trauma and reproduces a weakened form of it as a signal.
- The danger situations form a developmental series — psychical helplessness, loss of the object, castration, the super-ego's anger and withdrawal of love, and fear of death — each suited to a phase, though earlier ones can persist beside later ones; in women loss of love seems the most effective, and Freud links it to hysteria.
- Symptoms are formed to remove the ego from the danger situation that anxiety signals; when they are prevented, anxiety breaks out, as when an agoraphobic is left alone in the street or an obsessional is kept from washing.
- Obsessional neurosis rests on a regression from the phallic to the anal-sadistic organisation, a harsh super-ego and reaction formations in the ego; undoing and isolation are defensive techniques that stand in for repression.
- 'Defence' is reinstated as the general name for all the techniques by which the ego protects itself against instinctual demands, repression being one of them.
- Against Rank's The Trauma of Birth, Freud denies that the strength of the birth trauma decides who becomes neurotic, and names three factors instead: the human infant's prolonged helplessness, the interruption of sexual development between early childhood and puberty, and the ego's limited means of defence against internal danger.
- Resistance in analysis has five sources: in the ego, repression, transference and the gain from illness; in the id, the repetition compulsion, which makes working through necessary; and in the super-ego, the need for punishment.
- Anxiety is the reaction to the danger that object loss brings; pain is the reaction to the loss itself, and mourning is the work, directed by reality-testing, of detaching from the lost object.
What it shows
- 1926
Sigmund Freud critiqued Birth trauma
In Hemmung, Symptom und Angst Freud kept birth as the prototype of anxiety but rejected Rank's claim that it explains the neuroses.
- 1926
Otto Rank broke with Sigmund Freud
After the dispute over the birth trauma, Rank left Vienna and Freud's circle in 1926, settling in Paris and later in the United States.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud developed Projection
Freud revisits his earlier view that a phobia is a projection, replacing an internal instinctual danger with an external perceptual one from which one can flee. He calls the remark correct but superficial: the instinctual demand is dangerous only because it brings a real external danger, castration. In obsessional neurosis, he adds, there is no appearance of projection, since the danger is wholly internalised, and he describes the fear of death as fear of the superego projected onto the powers of fate.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud reworked Reaction formation
In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety Freud recasts reaction formation within the structural theory as an alteration of the ego: the countercathexis of obsessional neurosis, which reinforces the attitude opposed to the drive to be repressed (pity, conscientiousness, cleanliness). He ranks it as a mechanism of defence beside regression and repression, and contrasts the obsessional's generalised character traits with the hysteric's reaction formation, which clings to one particular object.
- 1905
Reaction formation derives from Repression
Freud first conceives reaction formation as a way of carrying out repression: in the Dora case the opposite of the thought to be repressed is over-strengthened so that it keeps the repressed thought down. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety he still speaks of “repression by reaction formation”, though there he also ranks it as a mechanism of defence in its own right.
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- 1926
Reaction formation derives from Countercathexis
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.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud reworked Repetition compulsion
In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety Freud recasts the compulsion in the terms of the structural theory. It is the repetition compulsion of the unconscious id that fixates repression, so that a new impulse follows the path of the repressed as if the old danger still existed. It is also the resistance of the unconscious, which remains to be overcome after the ego has given up its own resistance.
- 1926
Working through derives from Repetition compulsion
Freud grounds working through in the repetition compulsion. Even after the ego has resolved to give up its resistances, the power of the repetition compulsion, the pull of the unconscious prototypes on the repressed drive process, still has to be overcome. This resistance of the unconscious is what makes working through necessary.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud reworked Repression
In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety Freud reverses his earlier view that repressed libido is turned into anxiety: the ego's anxiety at a danger is what sets repression going. He also narrows the concept, bringing back 'defence' as the general name for the ego's techniques in conflict and keeping 'repression' for one particular method among them.
- 1895
Repression derives from Defense
Repression comes out of Freud's earlier theory of defence: in 1895 hysteria arises from the repression of an incompatible idea 'from the motive of defence'. Freud later let 'repression' stand for defence as a whole, and in 1926 he says so himself, bringing defence back as the general term of which repression is one kind.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud developed Primal repression
Freud had set out primal repression in 1915 as a first phase in which an instinctual representative is denied entry to consciousness. In 1926 he holds that most repressions met in treatment are after-pressure that presuppose earlier primal repressions, and suggests that quantitative factors, an overwhelming excitation that breaks through the protective shield, are what occasion them.
- 1915
Sigmund Freud introduced Primal repression
Freud named primal repression (Urverdrängung) in 'Repression' (1915) as a first phase in which a drive's psychical representative is denied entry into consciousness, an idea foreshadowed in the Schreber case (1911) as fixation. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety he returns to it as his own earlier concept, presupposed by later repressions.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud developed Resistance
Within the structural model, Freud ties resistance to the ego's counter-cathexis and distinguishes five kinds from three sources: repression resistance, transference resistance and the gain from illness in the ego; the resistance of the id, which calls for working through; and the super-ego's resistance, from the need for punishment.
- 1926
Sigmund Freud developed Working through
In 1926 Freud gives working through a dynamic ground. Even after the ego has resolved to give up its resistances, the repetition compulsion still binds the repressed drive to its unconscious prototypes. Of his five kinds of resistance, it is this resistance of the id, or of the unconscious, that makes working through necessary.