Freud - Complete Works (668 page)

   It is true that in the
metapsychological sense this bad repressed content does not belong
to my ‘ego’ - that is, assuming that I am a morally
blameless individual - but to an ‘id’ upon which my ego
is seated. But this ego developed out of the id, it forms with it a
single biological unit, it is only a specially modified peripheral
portion of it, and it is subject to the influences and obeys the
suggestions that arise from the id. For any vital purpose, a
separation of the ego from the id would be a hopeless
undertaking.

   Moreover, if I were to give way
to my moral pride and tried to decree that for purposes of moral
valuation I might disregard the evil in the id and need not make my
ego responsible for it, what use would that be to me? Experience
shows me that I nevertheless
do
take that responsibility,
that I am somehow compelled to do so. Psycho-analysis has made us
familiar with a pathological condition, obsessional neurosis, in
which the poor ego feels itself responsible for all sorts of evil
impulses of which it knows nothing, impulses which are brought up
against it in consciousness but which it is unable to acknowledge.
Something of this is present in every normal person. It is a
remarkable fact that the more moral he is the more sensitive is his
‘conscience’. It is just as though we could say that
the healthier a man is, the more liable he is to contagions and to
the effects of injuries. This is no doubt because conscience is
itself a reaction-formation against the evil that is perceived in
the id. The more strongly the latter is suppressed, the more active
is the conscience.

Some Additional Notes On Dream-Interpretation As A Whole

4051

   The ethical narcissism of
humanity should rest content with the knowledge that the fact of
distortion in dreams, as well as the existence of anxiety-dreams
and punishment-dreams, afford just as clear evidence of his
moral
nature as dream-interpretation gives of the existence
and strength of his
evil
nature. If anyone is dissatisfied
with this and would like to be ‘better’ than he was
created, let him see whether he can attain anything more in life
than hypocrisy or inhibition.

   The physician will leave it to
the jurist to construct for social purposes a responsibility that
is artificially limited to the metapsychological ego. It is
notorious that the greatest difficulties are encountered by the
attempts to derive from such a construction practical consequences
which are not in contradiction to human feelings.

Some Additional Notes On Dream-Interpretation As A Whole

4052

(C) THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF
DREAMS

   There seems to be no end to the
problems of dream-life. But this can only be surprising if we
forget that all the problems of mental life recur in dreams with
the addition of a few new ones arising from the special nature of
dreams. Many of the things that we study in dreams, because we meet
with them there, have nevertheless little or nothing to do with the
psychological peculiarity of dreams. Thus, for instance, symbolism
is not a dream-problem, but a topic connected with our archaic
thinking - our ‘basic language’, as it was aptly called
by the paranoic Schreber. It dominates myths and religious ritual
no less than dreams, and dream-symbolism can scarcely even claim
that it is peculiar in that it conceals more particularly things
that are important sexually. Again, it is not to be expected that
the explanation of anxiety-dreams will be found in the theory of
dreams. Anxiety is a problem rather of neurosis, and all that
remains to be discussed is how it comes about that anxiety can
arise under dream-conditions.

   The position is just the same, I
think, in the matter of the relation of dreams to the alleged facts
of the occult world. But, since dreams themselves have always been
mysterious things, they have been brought into intimate connection
with the other unknown mysteries. No doubt, too, they have a
historic claim to that position, since in primaeval ages, when our
mythology was being formed, dream-images may have played a part in
the origin of ideas about spirits.

   There would seem to be two
categories of dreams with a claim to being reckoned as occult
phenomena: prophetic dreams and telepathic ones. A countless
multitude of witnesses speak in favour of both of them, while
against both of them there is the obstinate aversion, or maybe
prejudice, of science.

Some Additional Notes On Dream-Interpretation As A Whole

4053

   There can, indeed, be no doubt
that there are such things as prophetic dreams, in the sense that
their content gives some sort of picture of the future; the only
question is whether these predictions coincide to any noticeable
extent with what really happens subsequently. I must confess that
upon this point my resolution in favour of impartiality deserts me.
The notion that there is any mental power, apart from acute
calculation, which can foresee future events in detail is on the
one hand too much in contradiction to all the expectations and
presumptions of science and on the other hand corresponds too
closely to certain ancient and familiar human desires which
criticism must reject as unjustifiable pretensions. I am therefore
of opinion that after one has taken into account the
untrustworthiness, credulity and unconvincingness of most of these
reports, together with the possibility of falsifications of memory
facilitated by emotional causes and the inevitability of a few
lucky shots, it may be anticipated that the spectre of veridical
prophetic dreams will disappear into nothing. Personally, I have
never experienced anything or learnt of anything that could
encourage a more favourable presumption.

   It is otherwise with telepathic
dreams. But at this point it must be made quite clear that no one
has yet maintained that telepathic phenomena - the reception of a
mental process by one person from another by means other than
sensory perception - are exclusively related to dreams. Thus once
again telepathy is not a dream-problem: our judgement upon whether
it exists or not need not be based on a study of telepathic
dreams.

   If reports of telepathic
occurrences (or, to speak less exactly, of thought-transference)
are submitted to the same criticism as stories of other occult
events, there remains a considerable amount of material which
cannot be so easily neglected. Further, it is much more possible to
collect observations and experiences of one’s own in this
field which justify a favourable attitude to the problem of
telepathy, even though they may not be enough to carry an assured
conviction. One arrives at a provisional opinion that it may well
be that telepathy really exists and that it provides the kernel of
truth in many other hypotheses that would otherwise be
incredible.

Some Additional Notes On Dream-Interpretation As A Whole

4054

   It is certainly right in what
concerns telepathy to adhere obstinately to the same sceptical
position and only to yield grudgingly to the force of evidence. I
believe I have found a class of material which is exempt from the
doubts which are otherwise justified - namely, unfulfilled
prophecies made by professional fortune-tellers. Unluckily, I have
but few such observations at my disposal; but two among these have
made a powerful impression on me. I am not in a position to
describe them in such detail as would produce a similar effect upon
other people, and I must restrict myself to bringing out a few
essential points.

   A prediction had been made, then,
to the enquirers (at a strange place and by a strange
fortune-teller, who was at the same time carrying out some,
presumably irrelevant, ritual) that something would happen to them
at a particular time, which in fact did
not
come true. The
date at which the prophecy should have been fulfilled was long
past. It was striking that those concerned reported their
experience not with derision or disappointment but with obvious
satisfaction. Included among what had been told them there were
certain quite definite details which seemed capricious and
unintelligible and would only have been justified if they had hit
the mark. Thus, for instance, the palmist told a woman who was
twenty-seven (though she looked much younger) and who had taken off
her wedding-ring, that she would be married and have two children
before she was thirty-two. The woman was forty-three when, now
seriously ill, she told me the story in her analysis: she had
remained childless. If one knew her private history (of which the
‘Professor’ in the lounge of the Paris hotel was
certainly ignorant) one could understand the two numbers included
in the prophecy. The girl had married after an unusually intense
attachment to her father and had then had a passionate longing for
children, so as to be able to put her husband in the place of her
father. After years of disappointment, when she was on the brink of
a neurosis, she obtained the prophecy, which promised her - the lot
of her mother. For it was a fact that the latter had had two
children by the time she was thirty-two. Thus it was only by the
help of psycho-analysis that it was possible to give a significant
interpretation of the peculiarities of this pretended message from
without. But there was then no better explanation of the whole,
unequivocally determined chain of events than to suppose that a
strong wish on the part of the questioner - the strongest
unconscious wish, in fact, of her whole emotional life and the
motive force of her impending neurosis - had made itself manifest
to the fortune-teller by being directly transferred to him while
his attention was being distracted by the performances he was going
through.

Some Additional Notes On Dream-Interpretation As A Whole

4055

   I have often had an impression,
in the course of experiments in my private circle, that strongly
emotionally coloured recollections can be successfully transferred
without much difficulty. If one has the courage to subject to an
analytic examination the associations of the person to whom the
thoughts are supposed to be transferred, correspondences often come
to light which would otherwise have remained undiscovered. On the
basis of a number of experiences I am inclined to draw the
conclusion that thought-transference of this kind comes about
particularly easily at the moment at which an idea emerges from the
unconscious, or, in theoretical terms, as it passes over from the
‘primary process’ to the ‘secondary
process’.

   In spite of the caution which is
prescribed by the importance, novelty and obscurity of the subject,
I feel that I should not be justified in holding back any longer
these considerations upon the problem of telepathy. All of this has
only this much to do with dreams: if there are such things as
telepathic messages, the possibility cannot be dismissed of their
reaching someone during sleep and coming to his knowledge in a
dream. Indeed, on the analogy of other perceptual and intellectual
material, the further possibility arises that telepathic messages
received in the course of the day may only be dealt with during a
dream of the following night. There would then be nothing
contradictory in the material that has been telepathically
communicated being modified and transformed in the dream like any
other material. It would be satisfactory if with the help of
psycho-analysis we could obtain further and better authenticated
knowledge of telepathy.

4056

THE INFANTILE GENITAL ORGANIZATION

(AN INTERPOLATION INTO THE THEORY OF SEXUALITY)

(1923)

4057

Intentionally left blank

4058

THE INFANTILE GENITAL ORGANIZATION

(AN INTERPOLATION INTO THE THEORY OF SEXUALITY)

The difficulty of the work of research in
psycho-analysis is clearly shown by the fact of its being possible,
in spite of whole decades of unremitting observation, to overlook
features that are of general occurrence and situations that are
characteristic, until at last they confront one in an unmistakable
form. The remarks that follow are intended to make good a neglect
of this sort in the field of infantile sexual development.

   Readers of my
Three Essays on
the Theory of Sexuality
(1905
d
) will be aware that I
have never undertaken any thorough remodelling of that work in its
later editions, but have retained the original arrangement and have
kept abreast of the advances made in our knowledge by means of
interpolations and alterations in the text. In doing this, it may
often have happened that what was old and what was more recent did
not admit of being merged into an entirely uncontradictory whole.
Originally, as we know, the accent was on a portrayal of the
fundamental difference between the sexual life of children and of
adults; later, the
pregenital organizations
of the libido
made their way into the foreground, and also the remarkable and
momentous fact of the
diphasic onset
of sexual development.
Finally, our interest was engaged by the
sexual researches
of children; and from this we were able to recognize the
far-reaching
approximation of the final outcome of sexuality in
childhood
(in about the fifth year) to the definitive form
taken by it in the adult. This is the point at which I left things
in the last (1922) edition of my
Three Essays
.

   In that volume (
p. 1400
) I wrote that
‘the choice of an object, such as we have shown to be
characteristic of the pubertal phase of development, has already
frequently or habitually been effected during the years of
childhood: that is to say, the whole of the sexual currents have
become directed towards a single person in relation to whom they
seek to achieve their aims. This then is the closest approximation
possible in childhood to the final form taken by sexual life after
puberty. The only difference lies in the fact that in childhood the
combination of the component instincts and their subordination
under the primacy of the genitals have been effected only very
incompletely or not at all. Thus the establishment of that primacy
in the service of reproduction is the last phase through which the
organization of sexuality passes.’

The Infantile Genital Organization

4059

   To-day I should no longer be
satisfied with the statement that in the early period of childhood
the primacy of the genitals has been effected only very
incompletely or not at all. The approximation of the child’s
sexual life to that of the adult goes much further and is not
limited solely to the coming into being of the choice of an object.
Even if a proper combination of the component instincts under the
primacy of the genitals is not effected, nevertheless, at the
height of the course of development of infantile sexuality,
interest in the genitals and in their activity acquires a
dominating significance which falls little short of that reached in
maturity. At the same time, the main characteristic of this
‘infantile genital organization’ is its
difference
from the final genital organization of the adult.
This consists in the fact that, for both sexes, only one genital,
namely the male one, comes into account. What is present,
therefore, is not a primacy of the genitals, but a primacy of the
phallus
.

   Unfortunately we can describe
this state of things only as it affects the male child; the
corresponding processes in the little girl are not known to us. The
small boy undoubtedly perceives the distinction between men and
women, but to begin with he has no occasion to connect it with a
difference in their genitals. It is natural for him to assume that
all other living beings, humans and animals, possess a genital like
his own; indeed, we know that he looks for an organ analogous to
his own in inanimate things as well.¹ This part of the body,
which is easily excitable, prone to changes and so rich in
sensations, occupies the boy’s interest to a high degree and
is constantly setting new tasks to his instinct for research. He
wants to see it in other people as well, so as to compare it with
his own; and he behaves as though he had a vague idea that this
organ could and should be bigger. The driving force which this male
portion of the body will develop later at puberty expresses itself
at this period of life mainly as an urge to investigate, as sexual
curiosity. Many of the acts of exhibitionism and aggression which
children commit, and which in later years would be judged without
hesitation to be expressions of lust, prove in analysis to be
experiments undertaken in the service of sexual research.

  
¹
It is, incidentally, remarkable what a
small degree of attention the other part of the male genitals, the
little sac with its contents, attracts in children. From all one
hears in analyses, one would not guess that the male genitals
consisted of anything more than the penis.

The Infantile Genital Organization

4060

   In the course of these researches
the child arrives at the discovery that the penis is not a
possession which is common to all creatures that are like himself.
An accidental sight of the genitals of a little sister or playmate
provides the occasion for this discovery. In unusually intelligent
children, the observation of girls urinating will even earlier have
aroused a suspicion that there is something different here. For
they will have seen a different posture and heard a different
sound, and will have made attempts to repeat their observations so
as to obtain enlightenment. We know how children react to their
first impressions of the absence of a penis. They disavow the fact
and believe that they
do
see a penis, all the same. They
gloss over the contradiction between observation and preconception
by telling themselves that the penis is still small and will grow
bigger presently; and they then slowly come to the emotionally
significant conclusion that after all the penis had at least been
there before and been taken away afterwards. The lack of a penis is
regarded as a result of castration, and so now the child is faced
with the task of coming to terms with castration in relation to
himself. The further developments are too well known generally to
make it necessary to recapitulate them here. But it seems to me
that
the significance of the castration complex can only be
rightly appreciated if its origin in the phase of phallic primacy
is also taken into account
.¹

  
¹
It has been quite correctly pointed out
that a child gets the idea of a narcissistic injury through a
bodily loss from the experience of losing his mother’s breast
after sucking, from the daily surrender of his faeces and, indeed,
even from his separation from the womb at birth. Nevertheless, one
ought not to speak of a castration complex until this idea of a
loss has become connected with the male genitals.

The Infantile Genital Organization

4061

   We know, too, to what a degree
depreciation of women, horror of women, and a disposition to
homosexuality are derived from the final conviction that women have
no penis. Ferenczi (1923) has recently, with complete justice,
traced back the mythological symbol of horror - Medusa’s head
- to the impression of the female genitals devoid of a
penis.¹

   It should not be supposed,
however, that the child quickly and readily makes a generalization
from his observation that some women have no penis. He is in any
case debarred from doing so by his assumption that the lack of a
penis is the result of having been castrated as a punishment. On
the contrary, the child believes that it is only unworthy female
persons that have lost their genitals - females who, in all
probability, were guilty of inadmissible impulses similar to his
own. Women whom he respects, like his mother, retain a penis for a
long time. For him, being a woman is not yet synonymous with being
without a penis.² It is not till later, when the child takes
up the problems of the origin and birth of babies, and when he
guesses that only women can give birth to them - it is only then
that the mother, too, loses her penis. And, along with this, quite
complicated theories are built up to explain the exchange of the
penis for a baby. In all this, the female genitals never seem to be
discovered. The baby, we know, is supposed to live inside the
mother’s body (in her bowel) and to be born through the
intestinal outlet. These last theories carry us beyond the stretch
of time covered by the infantile sexual period.

  
¹
I should like to add that what is indicated
in the myth is the
mother’s
genitals. Athene, who
carries Medusa’s head on her armour, becomes in consequence
the unapproachable woman, the sight of whom extinguishes all
thought of a sexual approach.

  
²
I learnt from the analysis of a young
married woman who had no father but several aunts that she clung,
until quite far on in the latency period, to the belief that her
mother and her aunts had a penis. One of her aunts, however, was
feeble-minded; and she regarded this aunt as castrated, as she felt
herself to be.

The Infantile Genital Organization

4062

   It is not unimportant to bear in
mind what transformations are undergone, during the sexual
development of childhood, by the polarity of sex with which we are
familiar. A first antithesis is introduced with the choice of
object, which, of course, presupposes a subject and an object. At
the stage of the pregenital sadistic-anal organization, there is as
yet no question of male and female; the antithesis between
active
and
passive
is the dominant one.¹ At the
following stage of infantile genital organization, which we now
know about,
maleness
exists, but not femaleness. The
antithesis here is between having
a male genital
and being
castrated
. It is not until development has reached its
completion at puberty that the sexual polarity coincides with
male
and
female
. Maleness combines subject, activity
and possession of the penis; femaleness takes over object and
passivity. The vagina is now valued as a place of shelter for the
penis; it enters into the heritage of the womb.

  
¹
Cf.
Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality
(1905
d
).