The First Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

A Gift for Sigmund Freud's 80th Birthday

Richard Sterba, Peter T. Hoffer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781782200536
• eBook ISBN: 9780429920806
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This is a new translation of the classic 1932 Dictionary by the author, for which Freud wrote a Preface praising the "precision and correctness" of the author's work and calling it a "fine achievement". The dictionary is not only an important source of information about psychoanalysis in Vienna in the 1930s but is also an insight into its author, as movingly attested by the 'Epilogue' to this edition written by his daughter Verena Sterba Michels, son-in-law Robert Michels, and grand-daughter Katherine J. Michels. This new edition also includes a transcript of an interview with the author by Dr William Langford, Chairman of the Department of Child Psychiatry at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.

DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, A-G

A

Abasie (abasia; abasie)

means the inability to walk. As a hysterical symptom, abasia appears when the function of walking acquires a forbidden sexual-symbolic meaning and is inhibited for this reason. The specific sexual-symbolic meaning of walking that lies at the basis of such an inhibition in walking can be recognised in each individual instance only through a psychoanalysis.

Aberglaube (superstition; superstition)

In superstition are manifested both a primitive mental state as well as a primitive world view, which [appears] to a greater extent as the adult intellect of civilised man senses and views the world as a projection of the contents and activities of his own mind. Accordingly, superstition is found especially in primitive peoples and in those civilised men who have remained at a standstill in a primitive way of thinking and feeling with a part of their emotional life, even though the remainder of their intellectual life has arrived at a stage of the highest development. In the ranks of the intellectuals, it is especially those who suffer from compulsive illness that represent the largest portion of superstitious people. Now and then they make use of their own techniques and tricks to realise their suspicions, premonitions, and dreams, in the process of which deceptions in memory, forgetting, indirect seeing, and reading are often first-rate aids. It is usually repressed, aggressive instinctual strivings, which, transformed into superstitious fears of misfortune, return from outside into consciousness, from which they have been expelled. Even the primitive belief in magical powers, which originates in the narcissism of the child, determines that coincidences are reinterpreted superstitiously in that the superstitious person interprets them as acts of higher powers.

Abfuhr (discharge; décharge, déversement)

is a concept from the energetic sphere of psychoanalytic thought. It is a designation of the release of that psychic energy from the psychic apparatus which had been infused into it by internal (instinctual) or external stimuli. By means of the discharge of the infused amount of energy, the energy level of the psychic apparatus sinks back to where it was before the introduction of the stimulus. The possibilities of discharge are twofold: the motor sphere [Motorik] of the primitive fidgeting and screaming of the infant up to purposeful action, which aims at changing the external world, and affectivity [Affektivität]. Analysis considers affective reactions such as rage, shame, mourning, etc. as processes that have the effect of discharging energy by means of their secretory and motor innervations. When I give my rage "free rein", then, relieved of it, I can return to the normal state of psychic equilibrium.

If a motor or affective resolution of the stimuli that have been introduced is impossible, because the appropriate reaction is inhibited by the norms of the personality or by the external world, then the reaction can be delayed with corresponding development and strength of the ego, and its energy can possibly be used with an altered aim. If, however, the tension is unbearable and a direct discharge is impossible after all, then the individual wards off the unpleasurable demands after discharge by means of repression [Verdrängung] (see separate entry) or other mechanisms of defence. In Freud's earlier writings, this process is called "strangulation" of an affect. The inadequately repressed demand for discharge then returns in distorted form in the neurotic symptom, whereby the symptom can simultaneously signify an, albeit inadequate, discharge by means of its unconscious satisfaction. The cathartic method [kathartische Methode] (see separate entry), by means of abreaction [Abreagieren] (see separate entry), attempted to discharge the amount of affect that has become pathogenic. Analytic therapy also attempts to abreact dammed-up quantities of affect (see therapy [Therapie]).

Abhärtgigkeiten des Ichs (dependence of the ego; sujétions du moi)

The ego shows three kinds of dependencies as a psychic agency; 1) on the external world, corresponding to the perception of the external world as one of the functions of the ego; 2) on the id, that is, on its libidinal demands, determined by the fact that the access to motility, that is, to instinctual discharge, is only possible by way of the ego, and 3) on the superego, which makes the ego responsible for its actions, but also even for the id's wishes, which remain unconscious to the ego. These three dependencies often make the situation and task of the ego very difficult, especially since the requirements that are imposed on the ego by the "three severe masters" (Freud, 1933a, p. 77]) frequently contradict one another. The ego attempts harmoniously to mediate between them. When it fails in its task, the result is the development of anxiety; realistic anxiety, when it takes too little account of its dependence on the external world; moral anxiety [Gewissensangst], when it does not satisfy the demand of the superego; neurotic anxiety about the all too strong instinctual demands of the id (see ego [Ich]).

Abirrungen, sexuelle (sexual aberrations; aberrations sexuelles)

See perversions [Perversionen].

Abkommlinge des Unbewuβten (derivatives of the unconscious; dérivés de I'inconscient)

is, according to Freud, the common term for a series of manifest (perceptible) psychic phenomena, which psychoanalysis has recognised as continuations of processes in the unconscious. Derivatives of the unconscious are, for example, fantasies, substitutive formations, symptoms. They mediate the traffic from the unconscious to the conscious. The derivatives of the unconscious play a major role in analytic therapy, since the technique of free association [freier Einfall] (see separate entry) leads to the production of such derivatives.

Ablehnung (rejection, repudiation; rejet, repudiation)

is frequently used as a synonym for defence [Abwvehr] (see separate entry) (e. g., rejection of the outside world, rejection of instinctual tendencies [Triebtendenze], etc.).

Abnorm (abnormal; anormal)

is the opposite of normal. Psychoanalysis has shown that the boundary between abnormal and normal in the psychic sphere is far and away more fluid than has previously been assumed. In every human being there are staging points for abnormal behaviour, in the form, as it were, of deviations towards perversion, to hysterical symptoms or obsessivecompulsive phenomena. Above all, however, in every human being the normal psychic processes are ruptured by the formations of the dream and the parapraxes, which must already be considered as abnormal formations with regard to normal thought and action, because they signify the penetration of unconscious mental contents into consciousness, and because, in their mechanism, they repeat the essential characteristics of the modus operandi of hysteria and obsessional neurosis, without, to be sure, causing generally more significant disturbances in the psychic economy

It has been shown that most abnormal manifestations of mental life are in no way completely new and different phenomena when compared to the normal, but rather that they occur to a small extent or at a different point in time (childhood), even in the normal. Therefore, the differentiation between normal and abnormal is frequently a quantitative one and dealt with from a practical vantage point.

abreagieren (abreaction, to abreact; abréaction, abréagir)

is what we call the type of resolution that stands at the disposal of the normal psychic apparatus when a psychic trauma (see separate entry), that is, an unusually strong stimulus, has impacted it. Abreaction occurs either through motor actions, in other words, through acts, or through affective reactions (see affect [Affekt]). The energy that is brought in through stimulus is brought to discharge through abreaction; the psychic apparatus achieves equilibrium again through abreaction. If the abreaction of the traumatic stimulus is absent for any reason, the expected affect [is] "clamped in" (eingeklemmt), as it were, then it comes, according to Breuer and Freud's first theory of hysterical phenomena, to an abnormal use of the psychic energy of affect by using it to form hysterical symptoms. The hypnotic and the purely cathartic methods of treatment attempt to withdraw the energy from the hysterical symptom through deferred abreaction, that is, through allowing the in the interim frequently forgotten traumatic events to be re-experienced under full affective reaction, and thus enabling the normal discharge of the abnormally utilised amount of affect. In therapeutic psychoanalysis, it also comes to abreaction of repressed quantities of affect (see therapy [Therapie]).

Absenz (temporary loss of consciousness; perte temporaire de la conscience)

is a mostly partial shutting off of consciousness of brief duration. A temporary loss of consciousness occurs at the height of sexual satisfaction; a temporary loss of consciousness also occurs in the hysterical attack. It is conceived of by Freud as an extension of the temporary loss of consciousness that occurs at the height of sexual satisfaction. Temporary losses of consciousness also occur during daydreams. The temporary loss of consciousness in epilepsy is an abortive, epileptic seizure with loss of consciousness for a few seconds (petit mal, absence).

Abspaltung (splitting off, dissociation; éviction)

The expression "splitting off" is used mainly in Freud's "Studies on Hysteria" (1895d). There, splitting off of a psychic group, that is, of a series of associatively connected ideas, is described as a process that results when an active exertion is undertaken not to think about the unpleasurable content of the group in question, to postpone it, to forget it. The portion of affect of the group that is isolated by splitting off can find abnormal discharge in conversion symptoms and compulsive manifestations. As analytic theory formation progressed, the concept of "splitting off" was subsumed by the concept of "repression" [Verdrängung] (see separate entry).

Abstinenz (abstinence; continence, abstinence sexuelle)

When abstinence is mentioned in the psychoanalytic literature, sexual abstinence, or the renunciation of achieving one sexual aim or another, is generally understood by the term. Usually, when one speaks plain and simply about abstinence in adults, one means the renunciation of genital satisfaction, that is, of sexual intercourse and the withholding of masturbation. These renunciations can be voluntary or involuntary. They are involuntary, as in prisons, on ships, etc. But even in the case of freely chosen abstinence, it frequently happens that unconscious guilt feeling and fear of sexuality are the true motives of the, only seemingly, voluntarily chosen abstinence. If the individual does not measure up to the abstinence, then actual neurotic symptoms such as anxiety, general nervousness appear as an expression of the direct toxic effect of the accumulated sexual substances (see actual neurosis [Aktualneurose]). Regressive and psychoneurotic manifestations can be further consequences.

Abstraktionsaufwand (expenditure of energy in abstract thought; dépense énergétique en abstraction)

In abstract thought processes, the psychic apparatus works with more expenditure, with higher enervation, so to speak, than when it is engaged in concrete matters. Freud calls this excess of energy, expenditure of energy in abstract thought. If the abstract thought is brought into the context of, and compared with, the concrete, the matter of fact, then a comic effect results when the concrete, through its banality, allows the difference between the abstract-sublime and the concrete to become very great. The expenditure of energy in abstract thought then becomes superfluous and is discharged as comic pleasure through laughter.

absurd (absurd; absurd)

One designates as absurd those declarations which crudely and openly contradict a truth that is generally held to be completely valid. One often finds that dreams and obsessional thoughts have an absurd content. In that case, what is absurd in the content represents a latent thought with the mockingly rejecting statement: "That is nonsense". Ridicule and scorn are thus represented by the absurd in dreams and in symptoms of obsessional neurosis.

Abulie (aboulia; aboulie)

is the lack of willpower on account of weakness of affect (frequently in melancholia, also in severe obsessional neuroses as a consequence of ambivalence [Ambivalenz] (see separate entry) of instinctual strivings).

Abwehr (defence; défense)

is the general designation for all mechanisms and functions that stand at the disposal of the psychic apparatus in order to keep the unpleasurable contents away from consciousness and disagreeable instinctual demands away from the ego. Defences of this kind are repression [Verdrängung] (see separate entry), regression [Regression] (see separate entry), reaction formation [Reaktionsbildung] (see separate entry), isolation [Isolieriing] (see separate entry), undoing [Ungeschehenmachen] (see separate entry). Also negation [Verneinung] (see separate entry), projection [Projektion] (see separate entry), identification [Identifizierung] (see separate entry), sublimation [Sublimierung] (see separate entry), are in the service of keeping painful contents away from consciousness and in this regard should be included among the processes of defence. The causes of defence are attributable to the fact that the contents of what is being defended against are unpleasurable to consciousness, either because they contradict the normative part of the personality (superego), or because they are representatives of wishes whose fulfilment becomes dangerous to the ego in the course of experience because it exposes itself to the danger of a punishment (castration).

Abwehrneuropsychosen (defence neuropsychoses; psychonévroses de défense)

In his earlier works, Freud designates defence neuropsychoses as hysteri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• A NOTE ON TRANSLATION
• PREFACE TO RICHARD STERBA’S DICTIONARY OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
• FOREWORD
• DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, A-G
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• EPILOGUE
• TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD STERBA
• ALPHABETICAL LIST OF GERMAN HEADINGS AND THEIR ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS
• REFERENCES