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Page 52
This, however, is not the breach in the functional efficiency of our
psychic apparatus through which the thoughts forming the material of the
secondary mental work are enabled to make their way into the primary
psychic process--with which formula we may now describe the work leading
to the dream and to the hysterical symptoms. This case of insufficiency
results from the union of the two factors from the history of our
evolution; one of which belongs solely to the psychic apparatus and has
exerted a determining influence on the relation of the two systems,
while the other operates fluctuatingly and introduces motive forces of
organic origin into the psychic life. Both originate in the infantile
life and result from the transformation which our psychic and somatic
organism has undergone since the infantile period.
When I termed one of the psychic processes in the psychic apparatus the
primary process, I did so not only in consideration of the order of
precedence and capability, but also as admitting the temporal relations
to a share in the nomenclature. As far as our knowledge goes there is no
psychic apparatus possessing only the primary process, and in so far it
is a theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact that the primary
processes are present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the
secondary processes develop gradually in the course of life, inhibiting
and covering the primary ones, and gaining complete mastery over them
perhaps only at the height of life. Owing to this retarded appearance of
the secondary processes, the essence of our being, consisting in
unconscious wish feelings, can neither be seized nor inhibited by the
foreconscious, whose part is once for all restricted to the indication
of the most suitable paths for the wish feelings originating in the
unconscious. These unconscious wishes establish for all subsequent
psychic efforts a compulsion to which they have to submit and which
they must strive if possible to divert from its course and direct to
higher aims. In consequence of this retardation of the foreconscious
occupation a large sphere of the memory material remains inaccessible.
Among these indestructible and unincumbered wish feelings originating
from the infantile life, there are also some, the fulfillments of which
have entered into a relation of contradiction to the end-presentation of
the secondary thinking. The fulfillment of these wishes would no longer
produce an affect of pleasure but one of pain; _and it is just this
transformation of affect that constitutes the nature of what we
designate as "repression," in which we recognize the infantile first
step of passing adverse sentence or of rejecting through reason_. To
investigate in what way and through what motive forces such a
transformation can be produced constitutes the problem of repression,
which we need here only skim over. It will suffice to remark that such a
transformation of affect occurs in the course of development (one may
think of the appearance in infantile life of disgust which was
originally absent), and that it is connected with the activity of the
secondary system. The memories from which the unconscious wish brings
about the emotional discharge have never been accessible to the Forec.,
and for that reason their emotional discharge cannot be inhibited. It
is just on account of this affective development that these ideas are
not even now accessible to the foreconscious thoughts to which they have
transferred their wishing power. On the contrary, the principle of pain
comes into play, and causes the Forec. to deviate from these thoughts of
transference. The latter, left to themselves, are "repressed," and thus
the existence of a store of infantile memories, from the very beginning
withdrawn from the Forec., becomes the preliminary condition of
repression.
In the most favorable case the development of pain terminates as soon as
the energy has been withdrawn from the thoughts of transference in the
Forec., and this effect characterizes the intervention of the principle
of pain as expedient. It is different, however, if the repressed
unconscious wish receives an organic enforcement which it can lend to
its thoughts of transference and through which it can enable them to
make an effort towards penetration with their excitement, even after
they have been abandoned by the occupation of the Forec. A defensive
struggle then ensues, inasmuch as the Forec. reinforces the antagonism
against the repressed ideas, and subsequently this leads to a
penetration by the thoughts of transference (the carriers of the
unconscious wish) in some form of compromise through symptom formation.
But from the moment that the suppressed thoughts are powerfully occupied
by the unconscious wish-feeling and abandoned by the foreconscious
occupation, they succumb to the primary psychic process and strive only
for motor discharge; or, if the path be free, for hallucinatory revival
of the desired perception identity. We have previously found,
empirically, that the incorrect processes described are enacted only
with thoughts that exist in the repression. We now grasp another part of
the connection. These incorrect processes are those that are primary in
the psychic apparatus; _they appear wherever thoughts abandoned by the
foreconscious occupation are left to themselves, and can fill themselves
with the uninhibited energy, striving for discharge from the
unconscious_. We may add a few further observations to support the view
that these processes designated "incorrect" are really not
falsifications of the normal defective thinking, but the modes of
activity of the psychic apparatus when freed from inhibition. Thus we
see that the transference of the foreconscious excitement to the
motility takes place according to the same processes, and that the
connection of the foreconscious presentations with words readily
manifest the same displacements and mixtures which are ascribed to
inattention. Finally, I should like to adduce proof that an increase of
work necessarily results from the inhibition of these primary courses
from the fact that we gain a _comical effect_, a surplus to be
discharged through laughter, _if we allow these streams of thought to
come to consciousness_.
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