On Freud's Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety

Samuel Arbiser, Jorge Schneider, Samuel Arbiser, Jorge Schneider

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781780490977
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429916830
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Besides constituting a fundamental milestone in contemporary Western thought, Sigmund Freud's monumental corpus of work laid the theoretical-technical foundations on which psychoanalysts based the construction and development of the comprehensive edifice in which they abide today. This edifice, so varied in tones, so heterogeneous, even contradictory at times, has stood strong because of these foundations. Indeed, this book attempts to show, through its various chapters written by psychoanalysts from different parts of the world and sustaining varied paradigms, this enriching heterogeneity coupled with the invisible thread which strings together the diversity lent to it by its Freudian foundations. One of the characteristics of the Freudian opus highlighted in this context is the fact that when we are able to study it in perspective, it is possible to glimpse a path of incessant improvement, where ideas and concepts are constantly reformulated and become more complex as clinical facts and methodological and epistemological resources call for it. Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety is the irrefutable proof of this affirmation.

Part I
"Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety"
(1926d)

Sigmund Freud

Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety

I

IN the description of pathological phenomena, linguistic usage enables us to distinguish symptoms from inhibitions, without, however, attaching much importance to the distinction. Indeed, we might hardly think it worth while to differentiate exactly between the two, were it not for the fact that we meet with illnesses in which we observe the presence of inhibitions but not of symptoms and are curious to know the reason for this.

The two concepts are not upon the same plane. Inhibition has a special relation to function. It does not necessarily have a pathological implication. One can quite well call a normal restriction of a function an inhibition of it. A symptom, on the other hand, actually denotes the presence of some pathological process. Thus, an inhibition may be a symptom as well. Linguistic usage, then, employs the word inhibition when there is a simple lowering of function, and symptom when a function has undergone some unusual change or when a new phenomenon has arisen out of it. Very often it seems to be quite an arbitrary matter whether we emphasize the positive side of a pathological process and call its outcome a symptom, or its negative side and call its outcome an inhibition. But all this is really of little interest; and the problem as we have stated it does not carry us very far.

Since the concept of inhibition is so intimately associated with that of function, it might be helpful to examine the various functions of the ego with a view to discovering the forms which any disturbance of those functions assumes in each of the different neurotic affections. Let us pick out for a comparative study of this kind the sexual function and those of eating, of locomotion and of professional work.

(a) The sexual function is liable to a great number of disturbances, most of which exhibit the characteristics of simple inhibitions. These are classed together as psychical impotence. The normal performance of the sexual function can only come about as the result of a very complicated process, and disturbances may appear at any point in it. In men the chief stages at which inhibition occurs are shown by: a turning away of the libido at the very beginning of the process (psychical-unpleasure); an absence of the physical preparation for it (lack of erection); an abridgement of the sexual act (ejaculatio praecox), an occurrence which might equally well be regarded as a symptom; an arrest of the act before it has reached its natural conclusion (absence of ejaculation); or a non-appearance of the psychical outcome (lack of the feeling of pleasure in orgasm). Other disturbances arise from the sexual function becoming dependent on special conditions of a perverse or fetishist nature.

That there is a relationship between inhibition and anxiety is pretty evident. Some inhibitions obviously represent a relinquishment of a function because its exercise would produce anxiety. Many women are openly afraid of the sexual function. We class this anxiety under hysteria, just as we do the defensive symptom of disgust which, arising originally as a deferred reaction to the experiencing of a passive sexual act, appears later whenever the idea of such an act is presented. Furthermore, many obsessional acts turn out to be measures of precaution and security against sexual experiences and are thus of a phobic character.

This is not very illuminating. We can only note that disturbances of the sexual function are brought about by a great variety of means. (1) The libido may simply be turned away (this seems most readily to produce what we regard as an inhibition pure and simple); (2) the function may be less well carried out; (3) it may be hampered by having conditions attached to it, or modified by being diverted to other aims; (4) it may be prevented by security measures; (5) if it cannot be prevented from starting, it may be immediately interrupted by the appearance of anxiety; and (6), if it is nevertheless carried out, there may be a subsequent reaction of protest against it and an attempt to undo what has been done.

(b) The function of nutrition is most frequently disturbed by a disinclination to eat, brought about by a withdrawal of libido. An increase in the desire to eat is also a not uncommon thing. The compulsion to eat is attributed to a fear of starving; but this is a subject which has been but little studied. The Symptom of vomiting is known to us as a hysterical defence against eating. Refusal to eat owing to anxiety is a concomitant of psychotic states (delusions of being poisoned).

(c) In some neurotic conditions locomotion is inhibited by a disinclination to walk or a weakness in walking. In hysteria there will be a paralysis of the motor apparatus, or this one special function of the apparatus will be abolished (abasia). Especially characteristic are the increased difficulties that appear in locomotion owing to the introduction of certain stipulations whose non-observance results in anxiety (phobia).

(d) In inhibition in work—a thing which we so often have to deal with as an isolated symptom in our therapeutic work— the subject feels a decrease in his pleasure in it or becomes less able to do it well; or he has certain reactions to it, like fatigue, giddiness or sickness, if he is obliged to go on with it. If he is a hysteric he will have to give up his work owing to the appearance of organic and functional paralyses which make it impossible for him to carry it on. If he is an obsessional neurotic he will be perpetually being distracted from his work or losing time over it through the introduction of delays and repetitions.

Our survey might be extended to other functions as well; but there would be nothing more to be learnt by doing so. For we should not penetrate below the surface of the phenomena presented to us. Let us then proceed to describe inhibition in such a way as to leave very little doubt about what is meant by it, and say that inhibition is the expression of a restriction of an ego-function. A restriction of this kind can itself have very different causes. Some of the mechanisms involved in this renunciation of function are well known to us, as is a certain general purpose which governs it.

This purpose is more easily recognizable in the specific inhibitions. Analysis shows that when activities like playing the piano, writing or even walking are subjected to neurotic inhibitions it is because the physical organs brought into play— the fingers or the legs—have become too strongly erotized. It has been discovered as a general fact that the ego-function of an organ is impaired if its erotogenicity—its sexual significance —is increased. It behaves, if I may be allowed a rather absurd analogy, like a maid-servant who refuses to go on cooking because her master has started a love-affair with her. As soon as writing, which entails making a liquid flow out of a tube on to a piece of white paper, assumes the significance of copulation, or as soon as walking becomes a symbolic substitute for treading upon the body of mother earth, both writing and walking are stopped because they represent the performance of a forbidden sexual act. The ego renounces these functions, which are within its sphere, in order not to have to undertake fresh measures of repression—in order to avoid a conflict with the id.

There are clearly also inhibitions which serve the purpose of self-punishment. This is often the case in inhibitions of professional activities. The ego is not allowed to carry on those activities, because they would bring success and gain, and these are things which the severe super-ego has forbidden. So the ego gives them up too, in order to avoid coming into conflict with the super-ego.

The more generalized inhibitions of the ego obey a different mechanism of a simple kind, When the ego is involved in a particularly difficult psychical task, as occurs in mourning, or when there is some tremendous suppression of affect or when a continual flood of sexual phantasies has to be kept down, it loses so much of the energy at its disposal that it has to cut down the expenditure of it at many points at once. It is in the position of a speculator whose money has become tied up in his various enterprises. I came across an instructive example of this kind of intense, though short-lived, general inhibition. The patient, an obsessional neurotic, used to be overcome by a paralysing fatigue which lasted for one or more days whenever something occurred which should obviously have thrown him into a rage. We have here a point from which it should be possible to reach an understanding of the condition of general inhibition which characterizes states of depression, including the gravest form of them, melancholia.

As regards inhibitions, then, we may say in conclusion that they are restrictions of the functions of the ego which have been either imposed as a measure of precaution or brought about as a result of an impoverishment of energy; and we can see without difficulty in what respect an inhibition differs from a symptom: for a symptom cannot any longer be described as a process that takes place within, or acts upon, the ego.

II

THE main characteristics of the formation of symptoms have long since been studied and, I hope, established beyond dispute.¹ A symptom is a sign of, and a substitute for, an instinctual satisfaction which has remained in abeyance; it is a consequence of the process of repression. Repression proceeds from the ego when the latter—it may be at the behest of the superego—refuses to associate itself with an instinctual cathexis which has been aroused in the id. The ego is able by means of repression to keep the idea which is the vehicle of the reprehensible impulse from becoming conscious. Analysis shows that the idea often persists as an unconscious formation.

So far everything seems clear; but we soon come upon difficulties which have not as yet been solved. Up till now our account of what occurs in repression has laid great stress on this point of exclusion from consciousness.² But it has left other points open to uncertainty. One question that arose was, what happened to the instinctual impulse which had been activated in the id and which sought satisfaction? The answer was an indirect one. It was that owing to the process of repression the pleasure that would have been expected from satisfaction had been transformed into unpleasure. But we were then faced with the problem of how the satisfaction of an instinct could produce unpleasure. The whole matter can be clarified, I think, if we commit ourselves to the definite statement that as a result of repression the intended course of the excitatory process in the id does not occur at all; the ego succeeds in inhibiting or deflecting it. If this is so the problem of 'transformation of affect' under repression disappears.³ At the same time this view implies a concession to the ego that it can exert a very extensive influence over processes in the id, and we shall have to find out in what way it is able to develop such surprising powers.

It seems to me that the ego obtains this influence in virtue of its intimate connections with the perceptual system—connections which, as we know, constitute its essence and provide the basis of its differentiation from the id. The function of this system, which we have called Pcpt.-Cs., is bound up with the phenomenon of consciousness.¹ It receives excitations not only from outside but from within, and endeavours, by means of the sensations of pleasure and unpleasure which reach it from these quarters, to direct the course of mental events in accordance with the pleasure principle. We are very apt to think of the ego as powerless against the id; but when it is opposed to an instinctual process in the id it has only to give a 'signal of unpleasure'² in order to attain its object with the aid of that almost omnipotent institution, the pleasure principle. To take this situation by itself for a moment, we can illustrate it by an example from another field. Let us imagine a country in which a certain small faction objects to a proposed measure the passage of which would have the support of the masses. This minority obtains command of the press and by its help manipulates the supreme arbiter, 'public opinion', and so succeeds in preventing the measure from being passed.

But this explanation opens up fresh problems. Where does the energy come from which is employed for giving the signal of unpleasure? Here we may be assisted by the idea that a defence against an unwelcome internal process will be modelled upon the defence adopted against an external stimulus, that the ego wards off internal and external dangers alike along identical lines. In the case of external danger the organism has recourse to attempts at flight. The first thing it does is to withdraw cathexis from the perception of the dangerous object; later on it discovers that it is a better plan to perform muscular movements of such a sort as will render perception of the dangerous object impossible even in the absence of any refusal to perceive it—that it is a better plan, that is, to remove itself from the sphere of danger. Repression is an equivalent of this attempt at flight. The ego withdraws its (preconscious) cathexis from the instinctual representative¹ that is to be repressed and uses that cathexis for the purpose of releasing unpleasure (anxiety). The problem of how anxiety arises in connection with repression may be no simple one; but we may legitimately hold firmly to the idea that the ego is the actual seat of anxiety and give up our earlier view that the cathectic energy of the repressed impulse is automatically turned into anxiety. If I expressed myself earlier in the latter sense, I was giving a phenomenological description and not a metapsychological account of what was occurring.

This brings us to a further question: how is it possible, from an economic point of view, for a mere process of withdrawal and discharge, like the withdrawing of a preconscious egocathexis, to produce unpleasure or anxiety, seeing that, according to our assumptions, unpleasure and anxiety can only arise as a result of an increase in cathexis? The reply is that this causal sequence should not be explained from an economic point of view. Anxiety is not newly created in repression; it is reproduced as an affective state in accordance with an already existing mnemic image. If we go further and enquire into the origin of that anxiety—and of affects in general—we shall be leaving the realm of pure psychology and entering the borderland of physiology. Affective...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• CONTEMPORARY FREUD IPA Publications Committee
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
• Introduction
• PART I "Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety" (1926d)
• PART II Discussion of "Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety"
• REFERENCES
• INDEX