Sigmund Freud .........................................................................................................................................1

Introduction to "The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis" by Raymond E. Fancher

Commentary on "The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis" by Raymond E. Fancher

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a new and somewhat embarrassing experience for me to appear as lecturer before

students of the New World. I assume that I owe this honor to the association of my name with the theme of

psychoanalysis, and consequently it is of psychoanalysis that I shall aim to speak. I shall attempt to give you

in very brief form an historical survey of the origin and further development of this new method of research

Granted that it is a merit to have created psychoanalysis, it is not my merit. I was a student, busy with the

passing of my last examinations, when another physician of Vienna, Dr. Joseph Breuer,[2] made the first

application of, this method to the case of an hysterical girl (188082). We must now examine the history of

this case and its treatment, which can be found in detail in "Studien über Hysterie," later published by Dr.

But first one word. I have noticed, with considerable satisfaction, that the majority of my hearers do not

belong to the medical profession. Now do not fear that a medical education is necessary to follow what I shall

have to say. We shall now accompany the doctors a little way, but soon we shall take leave of them and

Dr. Breuer's patient was a girl of twentyone, of a high degree of intelligence. She had developed in the

course of her two years' illness a series of physical and mental disturbances which well deserved to be taken

seriously. She had a severe paralysis of both right extremities, with anasthesia [sic], and at times the same

affection of the members of the left side of the body; disturbance of eyemovements, and much impairment

of vision; difficulty in maintaining the position of the head, an intense Tussis nervosa, nausea when she

attempted to take nourishment, and at one time for several weeks a loss of the power to drink, in spite of

tormenting thirst. Her power of speech was also diminished, and this progressed so far that she could neither

speak nor understand her mother tongue; and, finally, she was subject to states of "absence," of confusion,

delirium, alteration of her whole personality. These states will later claim our attention.

When one hears of such a case, one does not need to be a physician to incline to the opinion that we are

concerned here with a serious injury, probably of the brain, for which there is little hope of cure and which

will probably lead to the early death of the patient. The doctors will tell us, however, that in one type of cases

with just as unfavorable symptoms, another, far more favorable, opinion is justified. When one finds such a

series of symptoms in the case of a young girl, whose vital organs (heart, kidneys), are shown by objective

tests to be normal, but who has suffered from strong emotional disturbances, and when the symptoms differ

in certain finer characteristics from what one might logically expect, in a case like this the doctors are not too

much disturbed. They consider that there is present no organic lesion of the brain, but that enigmatical state,

known since the time of the Greek physicians as hysteria, which can simulate a whole series of symptoms of

various diseases. They consider in such a case that the life of the patient is not in danger and that a restoration

to health will probably come about of itself. The differentiation of such an hysteria from a severe organic

lesion is not always very easy. But we do not need to know how a differential diagnosis of this kind is made;

you may be sure that the case of Breuer's patient was such that no skillful physician could fail to diagnose an

hysteria. We may also add a word here from the history of the case. The illness first appeared while the

patient was caring for her father, whom she tenderly loved, during the severe illness which led to his death, a

So far it has seemed I best to go with the doctors, but we shall soon part company with them. You must not

think that the outlook of a patient with regard to medical aid is essentially bettered when the diagnosis points

to hysteria rather than to organic disease of the brain. Against the serious brain diseases medical skill is in

most cases powerless, but also in the case of hysterical affections the doctor can do nothing. He must leave it

to benign nature, when and how his hopeful prognosis will be realized.[4] Accordingly, with the recognition

of the disease as hysteria, little is changed in the situation of the patient, but there is a great change in the

attitude of the doctor. We can observe that he acts quite differently toward hystericals than toward patients

suffering from organic diseases. He will not bring the same interest to the former as to the latter, since their

suffering is much less serious and yet seems to set up the claim to be valued just as seriously.

But there is another motive in this action. The physician, who through his studies has learned so much that is

hidden from the laity, can realize in his thought the causes and alterations of the brain disorders in patients

suffering from apoplexy or dementia, a representation which must be right up to a certain point, for by it he is

enabled to understand the nature of each symptom. But before the details of hysterical symptoms, all his

knowledge, his anatomicalphysiological and pathological education, desert him. He cannot understand

hysteria. He is in the same position before it as the layman. And that is not agreeable to any one, who is in the

habit of setting such a high valuation upon his knowledge. Hystericals, accordingly, tend to lose his

sympathy; he considers them persons who overstep the laws of his science, as the orthodox regard heretics;

he ascribes to them all possible evils, blames them for exaggeration and intentional deceit, "simulation," and

Now Dr. Breuer did not deserve this reproach in this case; he gave his patient sympathy and interest, although

at first be did not understand how to help her. Probably this was easier for him on account of those superior

qualities of the patient's mind and character, to which he bears witness in his account of the case.

His sympathetic observation soon found the means which made the first help possible. It had been noticed

that the patient, in her states of "absence," of psychic alteration, usually mumbled over several words to

herself. These seemed to spring from associations with which her thoughts were busy. The doctor, who was

able to get these words, put her in a sort of hypnosis and repeated them to her over and over, in order to bring

up any associations that they might have. The patient yielded to his suggestion and reproduced for him those

psychic creations which controlled her thoughts during her "absences," and which betrayed themselves in

these single spoken words. These were fancies, deeply sad, often poetically beautiful, day dreams, we might

call them, which commonly took as their starting point the situation of a girl beside the sickbed of her

father. Whenever she had related a number of such fancies, she was, as it were, freed and restored to her

normal mental life. This state of health would last for several hours, and then give place on the next day to a

new "absence," which was removed in the same way by relating the newlycreated fancies. It was impossible

not to get the impression that the psychic alteration which was expressed in the "absence" was a consequence

of the excitations originating from these intensely emotional fancyimages. The patient herself, who at this

time of her illness strangely enough understood and spoke only English, gave this new kind of treatment the

The doctor soon hit upon the fact that through such cleansing of the soul more could be accomplished than a

temporary removal of the constantly recurring mental "clouds." Symptoms of the disease would disappear

when in hypnosis the patient could be made to remember the situation and the associative connections under

which they first appeared, provided free vent was given to the emotions which they aroused. "There was in

the summer a time of intense heat, and the patient had suffered very much from thirst; for, without any

apparent reason, she had suddenly become unable to drink. She would take a glass of water in her hand, but

as soon as it touched her lips she would push it away as though suffering from hydrophobia. Obviously for

these few seconds she was in her absent state. She ate only fruit, melons and the like, in order to relieve this

tormenting thirst. When this had been going on about six weeks, she was talking one day in hypnosis about

her English governess, whom she disliked, and finally told, with every sign of disgust, how she had come into

the room of the governess, and how that lady's little dog, that she abhorred, had drunk out of a glass. Out of

respect for the conventions the patient had remained silent. Now, after she had given energetic expression to

her restrained anger, she asked for a drink, drank a large quantity of water without trouble, and woke from

hypnosis with the glass at her lips. The symptom thereupon vanished permanently.[5]

Permit me to dwell for a moment on this experience. No one had ever cured an hysterical symptom by such

means before, or had come so near understanding its cause. This would be a pregnant discovery if the

expectation could be confirmed that still other, perhaps the majority of symptoms, originated in this way and

could be removed by the same method. Breuer spared no pains to convince himself of this and investigated

the pathogenesis of the other more serious symptoms in a more orderly way. Such was indeed the case;

almost all the symptoms originated in exactly this way, as remnants, as precipitates, if you like, of

affectivelytoned experiences, which for that reason we later called "psychic traumata." The nature of the

symptoms became clear through their relation to the scene which caused them. They were, to use the

technical term, "determined" (determiniert) by the scene whose memory traces they embodied, and so could

Only one variation from what might be expected must be mentioned. It was not always a single experience

which occasioned the symptom, but usually several, perhaps many similar, repeated traumata cooperated in

this effect. It was necessary to repeat the whole series of pathogenic memories in chronological sequence, and

of course in reverse order, the last first and the first last. It was quite impossible to reach the first and often

You will of course want to hear me speak of other examples of the causation of hysterical symptoms beside

this of inability to drink on account of the disgust caused by the dog drinking from the glass. I must, however,

if I hold to my programme, limit myself to very few examples. Breuer relates, for instance, that his patient's

visual disturbances could be traced back to external causes, in the following way. "The patient, with tears in

her eyes, was sitting by the sickbed when her father suddenly asked her what time it was. She could not see

distinctly, strained her eyes to see, brought the watch near her eyes so that the dial seemed very large

(macropia and strabismus conv.), or else she tried hard to suppress her tears, so that the sick man might not

All the pathogenic impressions sprang from the time when she shared in the care of her sick father. "Once she

was watching at night in the greatest anxiety for the patient, who was in a high fever, and in suspense, for a

surgeon was expected from Vienna, to operate on the patient. Her mother had gone out for a little while, and

Anna sat by the sickbed, her right arm hanging over the back of her chair. She fell into a revery [sic] and

saw a black snake emerge, as it were, from the wall and approach the sick man as though to bite him. (It is

very probable that several snakes had actually been seen in the meadow behind the house, that she had

already been frightened by them, and that these former experiences furnished the material for the

hallucination.) She tried to drive off the creature, but was as though paralyzed. Her right arm, which was

hanging over the back of the chair, had 'gone to sleep,' become anasthetic [sic] and paretic, and as she was

looking at it, the fingers changed into little snakes with deathsheads. (The nails.) Probably she attempted to

drive away the snake with her paralyzed right hand, and so the anasthesia [sic] and paralysis of this member

formed associations with the snake hallucination. When this had vanished, she tried in her anguish to speak,

but could not. She could not express herself in any language, until finally she thought of the words of an

English nursery song, and thereafter she could think and speak only in this language."[7] When the memory

of this scene was revived in hypnosis the paralysis of .the right arm, which had existed since the beginning of

When, a number of years later, I began to use Breuer's researches and treatment on my own patients, my

experiences completely coincided with his. In the case of a woman of about forty, there was a tic, a peculiar

smacking noise which manifested itself whenever she was laboring under any excitement, without any

obvious cause. It had its origin in two experiences which had this common element, that she attempted to

make no noise, but that by a sort of counterwill this noise broke the stillness. On the first occasion, she had

finally after much trouble put her sick child to sleep, and she tried to be very quiet so as not to awaken it. On

the second occasion, during a ride with both her children in a thunderstorm the horses took fright, and she

carefully avoided any noise for fear of frightening them still more.[8] I give this example instead of many

Ladies and gentlemen, if you will permit me to generalize, as is indispensable in so brief a presentation, we

may express our results up to this point in the formula: Our hysterical patients suffer from reminiscences.

Their symptoms are the remnants and the memory symbols of certain (traumatic) experiences.

A comparison with other memory symbols from other sources will perhaps enable us better to understand this

symbolism. The memorials and monuments with which we adorn our great cities, are also such memory

symbols. If you walk through London you will find before one of the greatest railway stations of the city a

richly decorated Gothic pillar "Charing Cross." One of the old Plantagenet kings, in the thirteenth century,

caused the body of his beloved queen Eleanor to be borne to Westminster, and had Gothic crosses erected at

each of the stations where the coffin was set down. Charing Cross is the last of these monuments, which

preserve the memory of this sad journey.[9] In another part of the city, you will see a high pillar of more

modern construction, which is merely called "the monument." This is in memory of the great fire which

broke out in the neighborhood in the year 1666, and destroyed a great part of the city. These monuments are

memory symbols like the hysterical symptoms; so far the comparison seems justified. But what would you

say to a Londoner who today stood sadly before the monument to the funeral of Queen Eleanor, instead of

going about his business with the haste engendered by modern industrial conditions, or rejoicing with the

young queen of his own heart? Or to another, who before the "Monument" bemoaned the burning of his loved

native city, which long since has arisen again so much more splendid than before?

Now hystericals and all neurotics behave like these two unpractical Londoners, not only in that they

remember the painful experiences of the distant past, but because they are still strongly affected by them.

They cannot escape from the past and neglect present reality in its favor. This fixation of the mental life on

the pathogenic traumata is an essential, and practically a most significant characteristic of the neurosis. I will

willingly concede the objection which you are probably formulating, as you think over the history of Breuer's

patient. All her traumata originated at the time when she was caring for her sick father, and her symptoms

could only be regarded as memory symbols of his sickness and death. They corresponded to mourning, and a

fixation on thoughts of the dead so short a time after death is certainly not pathological, but rather

corresponds to normal emotional behavior. I concede this: there is nothing abnormal in the fixation of feeling

on the trauma shown by Breuer's patient. But in other cases, like that of the tic that I have mentioned, the

occasions for which lay ten and fifteen years back, the characteristic of this abnormal clinging to the past is

very clear, and Breuer's patient would probably have developed it, if she had not come under the "cathartic

treatment" such a short time after the traumatic experiences and the beginning of the disease.

We have so far only explained the relation of the hysterical symptoms to the life history of the patient; now

by considering two further moments which Breuer observed, we may get a hint as to the processes of the

beginning of the illness and those of the cure. With regard to the first, it is especially to be noted that Breuer's

patient in almost all pathogenic situations had to suppress a strong excitement, instead of giving vent to it by

appropriate words and deeds. In the little experience with her governess' dog, she suppressed, through regard

for the conventions, all manifestations of her very intense disgust. While she was seated by her father's sick

bed, she was careful to betray nothing of her anxiety and her painful depression to the patient. When, later,

she reproduced the same scene before the physician, the emotion which she had suppressed on the occurrence

of the scene burst out with especial strength, as though it had been pent up all along. The symptom which had

been caused by that scene reached its greatest intensity while the doctor was striving to revive the memory of

the scene, and vanished after it had been fully laid bare. On the other hand, experience shows that if the

patient is reproducing the traumatic scene to the physician, the process bas no curative effect if, by some

peculiar chance, there is no development of emotion. It is apparently these emotional processes upon which

the illness of the patient and the restoration to health are dependent. We feel justified in regarding "emotion"

as a quantity which may become increased, derived and displaced. So we are forced to the conclusion that the

patient fell ill because the emotion developed in the pathogenic situation was prevented from escaping

normally, and that the essence of the sickness lies in the fact that these "imprisoned" (dingeklemmt) emotions

undergo a series of abnormal changes. In part they are preserved as a lasting charge and as a source of

constant disturbance in psycbical life; in part they undergo a change into unusual bodily innervations [sic]

and inhibitions, which present themselves as the physical symptoms of the case. We have coined the name

"hysterical conversion " for the latter process. Part of our mental energy is, under normal conditions,

conducted off by way of physical innervation [sic] and gives what we call "the expression of emotions."

Hysterical conversion exaggerates this part of the course of a mental process which is emotionally colored; it

corresponds to a far more intense emotional expression, which finds outlet by new paths. If a stream flows in

two channels, an overflow of one will take place as soon as the current in the other meets with an obstacle.

You see that we are in a fair way to arrive at a purely psychological theory of hysteria, in which we assign the

first rank to the affective processes. A second observation of Breuer compels us to ascribe to the altered

condition of consciousness a great part in determining the characteristics of the disease. His patient showed

many sorts of mental states, conditions of "absence," confusion and alteration of character, besides her

normal state. In her normal state she was entirely ignorant of the pathogenic scenes and of their connection

with her symptoms. She had forgotten those scenes, or at any rate had dissociated them from their pathogenic

connection. When the patient was hypnotized, it was possible, after considerable difficulty, to recall those

scenes to her memory, and by this means of recall the symptoms were removed. It would have been

extremely perplexing to know how to interpret this fact, if hypnotic practice and experiments had not pointed

out the way. Through the study of hypnotic phenomena, the conception, strange though it was at first, has

become familiar, that in one and the same individual several mental groupings are possible, which may

remain relatively independent of each other, "know nothing" of each other, and which may cause a splitting

of consciousness along lines which they lay down. Cases of such a sort, known as "double personality"

("double conscience"), occasionally appear spontaneously. If in such a division of personality consciousness

remains constantly bound up with one of the two states, this is called the conscious mental state, and the other

the unconscious. In the wellknown phenomena of socalled post hypnotic suggestion, in which a command

given in hypnosis is later executed in the normal state as though by an imperative suggestion, we have an

excellent basis for understanding how the unconscious state can influence the conscious, although the latter is

ignorant of the existence of the former. In the same way it is quite possible to explain the facts in hysterical

cases. Breuer came to the conclusion that the hysterical symptoms originated in such peculiar mental states,

which he called "hypnoidal states." (hypnoide Zustände.) Experiences of an emotional nature, which occur

during such hypnoidal states easily become pathogenic, since such states do not present the conditions for a

normal draining off of the emotion of the exciting processes. And as a result there arises a peculiar product of

this exciting process, that is, the symptom, and this is projected like a foreign body into the normal state. The

latter has, then, no conception of the significance of the hypnoidal pathogenic situation. Where a symptom

arises, we also find an amnesia, a memory gap, and the filling of this gap includes the removal of the

I am afraid that this portion of my treatment will not seem very clear, but you must remember that we are

dealing here with new and difficult views, which perhaps could not be made much clearer. This all goes to

show that our knowledge in this field is not yet very far advanced. Breuer's idea of the hypnoidal states has,

moreover, been shown to be superfluous and a hindrance to further investigation, and has been dropped from

present conceptions of psychoanalysis. Later I shall at least suggest what other influences and processes have

been disclosed besides that of the hypnoidal states, to which Breuer limited the causal moment.

You have probably also felt, and rightly, that Breuer's investigations gave you only a very incomplete theory

and insufficient explanation of the phenomena which we have observed. But complete theories do not fall

from Heaven, and you would have had still greater reason to be distrustful, had any one offered you at the

beginning of his observations a wellrounded theory, without any gaps; such a theory could only be the child

of his speculations and not the fruit of an unprejudiced investigation of the facts.

Ladies and Gentlemen: At about the same time that Breuer was using the "talkingcure" with his patient, M.

Cbarcot began in Paris, with the hystericals of the Salpetrière, those researches which were to lead to a new

understanding of the disease. These results were, however, not yet known in Vienna. But when about ten

vears later Breuer and I published our preliminary communication on the psychic mechanism of hysterical

phenomena, which grew out of the cathartic treatment of Breuer's first patient, we were both of us under the

spell of Charcot's investigations. We made the pathogenic experiences of our patients, which acted as psychic

traumata, equivalent to those physical traumata whose influence on hysterical paralyses Charcot had

determined; and Breuer's hypothesis of hypnoidal states is itself only an echo of the fact that Charcot had

The great French observer, whose student I was during the years 188586, had no natural bent for creating

psychological theories. His student, P. Janet, was the first to attempt to penetrate more deeply into the

psychic processes of hysteria, and we followed his example, when we made the mental splitting and the

dissociation of personality the central points of our theory, Janet propounds a theory of hysteria which draws

upon the principal theories of heredity and degeneration which are current in France. According to his view

hysteria is a form of degenerative alteration of the nervous system, manifesting itself in a congenital "

weakness " of the function of psychic synthesis. The hysterical patient is from the start incapable of

correlating and unifying the manifold of his mental processes, and so there arises the tendency to mental

dissociation. If you will permit me to use a banal but clear illustration, Janet's hysterical reminds one of a

weak woman who has been shopping, and is now on her way home, laden with packages and bundles of

every description. She cannot manage the whole lot with her two arms and her ten fingers, and soon she drops

Now it does not agree very well, with this assumed mental weakness of hystericals, that there can be

observed in hysterical cases, besides the phenomena of lessened functioning, examples of a partial increase of

functional capacity, as a sort of compensation. At the time when Breuer's patient had forgotten her

mothertongue and all other languages save English, her control of English attained such a level that if a

German book was put before her she could give a fluent, perfect translation of its contents at sight. When

later I undertook to continue on my own account the investigations begun by Breuer, I soon came to another

view of the origin of hysterical dissociation (or splitting of consciousness). It was inevitable that my views

should diverge widely and radically, for my point of departure was not, like that of Janet, laboratory

researches, but attempts at therapy. Above everything else, it was practical needs that urged me on. The

cathartic treatment, as Breuer had made use of it, presupposed that the patient should be put in deep hypnosis,

for only in hypnosis was available the knowledge of his pathogenic associations, which were unknown to him

in his normal state. Now hypnosis, as a fanciful, and so to speak, mystical, aid, I soon came to dislike; and

when I discovered that, in spite of all my efforts, I could not hypnotize by any means all of my patients, I

resolved to give up hypnotism and to make the cathartic method independent of it.

Since I could not alter the psychic state of most of my patients at my wish, I directed my efforts to working

with them in their normal state. This seems at first sight to be a particularly senseless and aimless

undertaking. The problem was this: to find out something from the patient that the doctor did not know and

the patient himself did not know. How could one hope to make such a method succeed? The memory of a

very noteworthy and instructive proceeding came to my aid, which I had seen in Bernheim's clinic at Nancy.

Bernheim showed us that persons put in a condition of hypnotic somnambulism, and subjected to all sorts of

experiences, had only apparently lost the memory of those somnambulic experiences, and that their memory

of them could be awakened even in the normal state. If he asked them about their experiences during

somnambulism, they said at first that they did not remember, but if he persisted, urged, assured them that they

Accordingly I did this with my patients. When I had reached in my procedure with them a point at which they

declared that they knew nothing more, I would assure them that they did know, that they must just tell it out,

and I would venture the assertion that the memory which would emerge at the moment that I laid my hand on

the patient's forehead would be the right one. In this way I succeeded, without hypnosis, in learning from the

patient all that was necessary for a construction of the connection between the forgotten pathogenic scenes

and the symptoms which they had left behind. This was a troublesome and in its length an exhausting

proceeding, and did not lend itself to a finished technique. But I did not give it up without drawing definite

conclusions from the data which I had gained. I had substantiated the fact that the forgotten memories were

not lost. They were in the possession of the patient, ready to emerge and form associations with his other

mental content, but hindered from becoming conscious, and forced to remain in the unconscious by some sort

of a force. The existence of this force could be assumed with certainty, for in attempting to drag up the

unconscious memories into the consciousness of the patient, in opposition to this force, one got the sensation

of his own personal effort striving to overcome it. One could get an idea of this force, which maintained the

It is on this idea of resistance that I based my theory of the psychic processes of hystericals. It had been found

that in order to cure the patient it was necessary that this force should be overcome. Now with the mechanism

of the cure as a starting point, quite a definite theory could be constructed. These same forces, which in the

present situation as resistances opposed the emergence of the forgotten ideas into consciousness, must

themselves have caused the forgetting, and repressed from consciousness the pathogenic experiences. I called

this hypothetical process "repression" (Verdrängung), and considered that it was proved by the undeniable

But now the question arose: what were those forces, and what were the conditions of this repression, in which

we were now able to recognize the pathogenic mechanism of hysteria? A comparative study of the

pathogenic situations, which the cathartic treatment has made possible, allows us to answer this question. In

all those experiences, it had happened that a wish had been aroused, which was in sharp opposition to the

other desires of the individual, and was not capable of being reconciled with the ethical, aesthetic and

personal pretensions of the patient's personality. There had been a short conflict, and the end of this inner

struggle was the repression of the idea which presented itself to consciousness as the bearer' of this

irreconcilable wish. This was, then, repressed from consciousness and forgotten. The incompatibility of the

idea in question with the "ego" of the patient was the motive of the repression, the ethical and other

pretensions of the individual were the repressing forces. The presence of the incompatible wish, or the

duration of the conflict, had given rise to a high degree of mental pain; this pain was avoided by the

repression. This latter process is evidently in such a case a device for the protection of the personality.

I will not multiply examples, but will give you the history of a single one of my cases, in which the

conditions and the utility of the repression process stand out clearly enough. Of course for my purpose I must

abridge the history of the case and omit many valuable theoretical considerations. It is that of a young girl,

who was deeply attached to her father, who had died a short time before, and in whose care she had shared

a situation analogous to that of Breuer's patient. When her older sister married, the girl grew to feel a

peculiar sympathy for her new brotherinlaw, which easily passed with her for family tenderness. This

sister soon fell ill and died, while the patient and her mother were away. The absent ones were hastily

recalled, without being told fully of the painful situation. As the girl stood by the bedside of her dead sister,

for one short moment there surged up in her mind an idea, which might be framed in these words: "Now he is

free and can marry me." We may be sure that this idea, which betrayed to her consciousness her intense love

for her brotherinlaw, of which she had not been conscious, was the next moment consigned to repression

by her revolted feelings. The girl fell ill with severe hysterical symptoms, and, when I came to treat the case,

it appeared that she had entirely forgotten that scene at her sister's bedside and the unnatural, egoistic desire

which had arisen in her. She remembered it during the treatment, reproduced the pathogenic moment with

every sign of intense emotional excitement, and was cured by this treatment.[10]

Perhaps I can make the process of repression and its necessary relation to the resistance of the patient, more

concrete by a rough illustration, which I will derive from our present situation.

Suppose that here in this hall and in this audience, whose exemplary stillness and attention I cannot

sufficiently commend, there is an individual who is creating a disturbance, and, by his illbred laughing,

talking, by scraping his feet, distracts my attention from my task. I explain that I cannot go on with my

lecture under these conditions, and thereupon several strong men among you get up, and, after a short

struggle, eject the disturber of the peace from the hall. He is now "repressed," and I can continue my lecture.

But in order that the disturbance may not be repeated, in case the man who has just been thrown out attempts

to force his way back into the room, the gentlemen who have executed my suggestion take their chairs to the

door and establish themselves there as a "resistance," to keep up the repression. Now, if you transfer both

locations to the psyche, calling this "consciousness," and the outside the "unconscious," you have a tolerably

We can see now the difference between our theory and that of Janet. We do not derive the psychic fission

from a congenital lack of capacity on the part of the mental apparatus to synthesize its experiences, but we

explain it dynamically by the conflict of opposing mental forces, we recognize in it the result of an active

New questions at once arise in great number from our theory. The situation of psychic conflict is a very

frequent one; an attempt of the ego to defend itself from painful memories can be observed everywhere, and

yet the result is not a mental fission. We cannot avoid the assumption that still other conditions are necessary,

if the conflict is to result in dissociation. I willingly concede that with the assumption of "repression" we

stand, not at the end, but at the very beginning of a psychological theory. But we can advance only one step at

a time, and the completion of our knowledge must await further and more thorough work.

Now do not attempt to bring the case of Breuer's patient under the point of view of repression. This history

cannot be subjected to such an attempt, for it was gained with the help of hypnotic influence. Only when

hypnosis is excluded can you see the resistances and repressions and get a correct idea of the pathogenic

process. Hypnosis conceals the resistances and so makes a certain part of the mental field freely accessible.

By this same process the resistances on the borders of this field are heaped up into a rampart, which makes all

The most valuable things that we have learned from Breuer's observations were his conclusions as to the

connection of the symptoms with the pathogenic experiences or psychic traumata, and we must not neglect to

evaluate this result properly from the standpoint of the repressiontheory. It is not at first evident how we can

get from the repression to the creation of the symptoms Instead of giving a complicated theoretical derivation,

I will return at, this point to the illustration which I used to typify repression.

Remember that with the ejection of the rowdy and the establishment of the watchers before the door, the

affair is not necessarily ended. It may very well happen that the ejected man, now embittered and quite

careless of consequences, gives us more to do. He is no longer among us, we are free from his presence, his

scornful laugh, his halfaudible remarks, but in a certain sense the repression has miscarried, for he makes a

terrible uproar outside, and by his outcries and by hammering on the door with his fists interferes with my

lecture more than before. Under these circumstances it would be hailed with delight if possibly our honored

president, Dr. Stanley Hall, should take upon himself the role of peacemaker and mediator. He would speak

with the rowdy on the outside, and then turn to us with the recommendation that we let him in again,

provided he would guarantee to behave himself better. On Dr. Hall's authority we decide to stop the

repression, and now quiet and peace reign again. This is in fact a fairly good presentation of the task

devolving upon the physician in the psychoanalytic therapy of neuroses To say the same thing more directly:

we come to the conclusion, from working with hysterical patients and other neurotics, that they have not fully

succeeded in repressing the idea to which the incompatible wish is attached. They have, indeed, driven it out

of consciousness and out of memory, and apparently saved themselves a great amount of psychic pain, but in

the unconscious the suppressed wish still exists, only waiting for its chance to become active, and finally

succeeds in sending into consciousness, instead of the repressed idea, a disguised and unrecognizable

surrogatecreation (Ersatzbildung), to which the same painful sensations associate themselves that the patient

thought he was rid of through his repression. This surrogate of the suppressed idea the symptom is

secure against further attacks from the defences of the ego, and instead of a short conflict there originates

now a permanent suffering. We can observe in the symptom, besides the tokens of its disguise, a remnant of

traceable similarity with the originally repressed idea; the way in which the surrogate is built up can be

discovered during the psychoanalytic treatment of the patient, and for his cure the symptom must be traced

back over the same route to the repressed idea. If this repressed material is once more made part of the

conscious mental functions a process which supposes the overcoming of considerable resistance the

psychic conflict which then arises, the same which the patient wished to avoid, is made capable of a happier

termination, under the guidance of the physician, than is offered by repression. There are several possible

suitable decisions which can bring conflict and neurosis to a happy end; in particular cases the attempt may

be made to combine several of these. Either the personality of the patient may be convinced that he has been

wrong in rejecting the pathogenic wish, and he may be made to accept it either wholly or in part; or this wish

may itself be directed to a higher goal which is free from objection, by what is called sublimation

(Sublimierung); or the rejection may be recognized as rightly motivated, and the automatic and therefore

insufficient mechanism of repression be reinforced by the higher, more characteristically human mental

Forgive me if I have not been able to present more clearly these main points of the treatment which is today

known as "psychoanalysis." The difficulties do not lie merely in the newness of the subject.

Regarding the nature of the unacceptable wishes, which succeed in making their influence felt out of the

unconscious, in spite of repression; and regarding the question of what subjective and constitutional factors

must be present for such a failure of repression and such a surrogate or symptom creation to take place, we

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is not always easy to tell the truth, especially when one must be brief, and so

I told you how when I gave up using hypnosis I pressed my patients to tell me what came into their minds

that had to do with the problem we were working on, I told them that they would remember what they had

apparently forgotten, and that the thought which irrupted into consciousness (Einfall) would surely embody

the memory for which we were seeking. I claimed that I substantiated the fact that the first idea of my

patients brought the right clue and could be shown to be the forgotten continuation of the memory. Now this

is not always so; I represented it as being so simple only for purposes of abbreviation. In fact, it would only

happen the first times that the right forgotten material would emerge through simple pressure on my part. If

the experience was continued, ideas emerged in every case which could not be the right ones, for they were

not to the purpose, and the patients themselves rejected them as incorrect. Pressure was of no further service

here, and one could only regret again having given up hypnosis. In this state of perplexity I clung to a

prejudice which years later was proved by my friend C. G. Jung of the University of Zürich, and his pupils to

have a scientific justification. I must confess that it is often of great advantage to have prejudices. I put a high

value on the strength of the determination of mental processes, and I could not believe that any idea which

occurred to the patient, which originated in a state of concentrated attention, could be quite arbitrary and out

of all relation to the forgotten idea that we were seeking. That it was not identical with the latter, could be

satisfactorily explained by the hypothetical psychological situation. In the patients whom I treated there were

two opposing forces: on the one hand the conscious striving to drag up into consciousness the forgotten

experience which was present in the unconscious; and on the other hand the resistance which we have seen,

which set itself against the emergence of the suppressed idea or its associates into consciousness. In case this

resistance was nonexistent or very slight, the forgotten material could become conscious without disguise

(Enstellung). It was then a natural supposition that the disguise would be the more complete, the greater the

resistance to the emergence of tbe idea. Thoughts which broke into the patient's consciousness instead of the

ideas sought for, were accordingly made up just like symptoms; they were new, artificial, ephemeral

surrogates for the repressed ideas, and differed from these just in proportion as they had been more

completely disguised under the influence of the resistances. These surrogates must, however, show a certain

similarity with the ideas which are the object of our search, by virtue of their nature as symptoms; and when

the resistance is not too intensive it is possible from the nature of these irruptions to discover the hidden

object of our search. This must be related to the repressed thought as a sort of allusion, as a statement of the

We know cases in normal psychology in which analogous situations to the one which we have assumed give

rise to similar experiences. Such a case is that of wit. By my study of psychoanalytic technique I was

necessarily led to a consideration of the problem of the nature of wit. I will give one example of this sort,

The anecdote runs: [11]Two unscrupulous business men had succeeded by fortunate speculations in

accumulating a large fortune, and then directed their efforts to breaking into good society. Among other

means they thought it would be of advantage to be painted by the most famous and expensive artist of the

city, a man whose paintings were considered as events. The costly paintings were first shown at a great soirée

and both hosts led the most influential connoisseur and art critic to the wall of the salon on which the portraits

were hung, to elicit his admiring judgment. The artist looked for a long time, looked about as though in

search of something, and then merely asked, pointing out the vacant space between the two pictures; "And

I see that you are all laughing over this good example of wit, which we will now attempt to analyse. We

understand that the critic means to say; "You are a couple of malefactors, like those between whom the

Saviour was crucified." But he does not say this, he expresses himself instead in a way that at first seems not

to the purpose and not related to the matter in band, but which at the next moment we recognize as an

allusion to the insult at which he aims, and as a perfect surrogate for it. We cannot expect to find in the case

of wit all those relations that our theory supposes for the origin of the irruptive ideas of our patients, but it is

my desire to lay stress on the similar motivation of wit and irruptive idea. Why does not the critic say directly

what he has to say to the two rogues? Because, in addition to his desire to say it straight out, he is actuated by

strong opposite motives. It is a proceeding which is liable to be dangerous to offend people who are one's

hosts, and who can call to their aid the strong arms of numerous servants. One might easily suffer the same

fate that I usedin the previous lecture to illustrate repression. On this ground, the critic does not express the

particular insult directly, but in a disguised form, as an allusion with omission. The same constellation comes

into play, according to our hypothesis, when our patient produces the irruptive idea as a surrogate for the

Ladies and gentlemen, it is very useful to designate a group of ideas which belong together and have a

common emotive tone, according to the custom of the Zürich school (Bleuler, Jung and others), as a

"complex." So we can say that if we set out from the last memories of the patient to look for a repressed

complex, that we have every prospect of discovering it, if only the patient will communicate to us a sufficient

number of the ideas which come into his head. So we let the patient speak along any line that he desires, and

cling to the hypothesis that nothing can occur to him except what has some indirect bearing on the complex

that we are seeking. If this method of discovering the repressed complexes seems too circumstantial, I can at

In practicing this technique, one is further bothered by the fact that the patient often stops, is at a standstill,

and considers that he has nothing to say; nothing occurs to him. If this were really the case and the patient

were right, our procedure would again be proven inapplicable. Closer observation shows that such an absence

of ideas never really occurs, and that it only appears to when the patient holds back or rejects the idea which

be perceives, under the influence of the resistance, which disguises itself as critical judgment of the value of

the idea. The patient can be protected from this if he is warned in advance of this circumstance, and told to

take no account of the critical attitude. He must say anything that comes into his mind, fully laying aside such

critical choice, even though he may think it unessential, irrelevant, nonsensical, especially when the idea is

one which is unpleasant to dwell on. By following this prescription we secure the material which sets us on

These irruptive ideas, which the patient himself values little, if he is under the influence of the resistance and

not that of the physician, are for the psychologist like the ore, which by simple methods of interpretation he

reduces from its crude state to valuable metal. If one desires to gain in a short time a preliminary knowledge

of the patient's repressed complexes, without going into the question of their arrangement and associations,

this examination may be conducted with the help of the association experiments, as Jung [12] and his pupils

have perfected them. This procedure is to the psychologist what qualitative analysis is to the chemist; it may

be dispensed with in the therapy of neurotic patients, but is indispensable in the investigations of the

psychoses, which have been begun by the Zürich school with such valuable results.

This method of work with whatever comes into the patient's head when be submits to psychoanalytic

treatment, is not the only technical means at our disposal for the widening of consciousness. Two other

methods of procedure serve the same purpose, the interpretation of his dreams and the evaluation of acts

I might say, esteemed hearers, that for a long time I hesitated whether instead of this hurried survey of the

whole field of psychoanalysis, I should not rather offer you a thorough consideration of the analysis of

dreams; a purely subjective and apparently secondary motive decided me against this. It seemed rather an

impropriety that in this country, so devoted to practical pursuits, I should pose as "interpreter of dreams,"

before you had a chance to discover what significance the old and despised art can claim.

Interpretation of dreams is in fact the via regia to the interpretation of the unconscious, the surest ground of

psychoanalysis and a field in which every worker must win his convictions and gain his education. If I were

asked how one could become a psychoanalist [sic], I should answer, through the study of his own dreams.

With great tact all opponents of the psychoanalytic theory have so far either evaded any criticism of the

"Traumdeutung"[13] or have attempted to pass over it with the most superficial objections. If, on the

contrary, you will undertake the solution of the problems of dream life, the novelties which psychoanalysis

You must remember that our nightly dream productions show the greatest outer similarity and inner

relationship to the creations of the insane, but on the other hand are compatible with full health during waking

life. It does not sound at all absurd to say that whoever regards these normal sense illusions, these delusions

and alterations of character as matter for amazement instead of understanding, has not the least prospect of

understanding the abnormal creations of diseased mental states in any other than the lay sense. You may with

confidence place in this lay group all the psychiatrists of today. Follow me now on a brief excursion through

In our waking state we usually treat dreams with as little consideration as the patient treats the irruptive ideas

which the psychoanalyst demands from him. It is evident that we reject them, for we forget them quickly and

completely. The slight valuation which we place on them is based, with those dreams that are not confused

and nonsensical, on the feeling that they are foreign to our personality, and, with other dreams, on their

evident absurdity and senselessness. Our rejection derives support from the unrestrained shamelessness and

the immoral longings which are obvious in many dreams. Antiquity, as we know, did not share this light

valuation of dreams. The lower classes of our people today stick close to the value which they set on

dreams; they, however, expect from them, as did the ancients, the revelation of the future. I confess that I see

no need to adopt mystical hypotheses to fill out the gaps in our present knowledge, and so I have never been

able to find anything that supported the hypothesis of the prophetic nature of dreams. Many other things,

And first, not all dreams are so foreign to the character of the dreamer, are incomprehensible and confused. If

you will undertake to consider the dreams of young children from the age of a year and a half on, you will

find them quite simple and easy to interpret. The young child always dreams of the fulfillment of wishes

which were aroused in him the day before and were not satisfied. You need no art of interpretation to

discover this simple solution, you only need to inquire into the experiences of the child on the day before (the

"dream day"). Now it would certainly be a most satisfactory solution of the dreamriddle, if the dreams of

adults, too, were the same as those of children, fulfillments of wishes which had been aroused in them during

the dream day. This is actually the fact; the difficulties which stand in the way of this solution can be

There is, first of all, the most weighty objection, that the dreams of adults generally have an

incomprehensible content, which shows wishfulfillment least of anything. The answer is this: these dreams

have undergone a process of disguise, the psychic content which underlies them was originally meant for

quite different verbal expression. You must differentiate between the manifest dreamcontent, which we

remember in the morning only confusedly, and with difficulty clothe in words which seem arbitrary, and the

latent dreamthoughts, whose presence in the unconscious we must assume. This distortion of the dream

(Traumentstellung) is the same process which has been revealed to you in the investigations of the creations

(symptoms) of hysterical subjects; it points to the fact that the same opposition of psychic forces has its share

The manifest dreamcontent is the disguised surrogate for the unconscious dream thoughts, and this

disguising is the work of the defensive forces of the ego, of the resistances. These prevent the repressed

wishes from entering consciousness during the waking life, and even in the relaxation of sleep they are still

strong enough to force them to hide themselves by a sort of masquerading. The dreamer, then, knows just as

little the sense of his dream as the hysterical knows the relation and significance of his symptoms. That there

are latent dreamthoughts and that between them and the manifest dreamcontent there exists the relation

just describedof this you may convince yourselves by the analysis of dreams, a procedure the technique of

which is exactly that of psychoanalysis. You must abstract entirely from the apparent connection of the

elements in the manifest dream and seek for the irruptive ideas which arise through free association,

according to the psychoanalytic laws, from each separate dream element. From this material the latent dream

thoughts may be discovered, exactly as one divines the concealed complexes of the patient from the fancies

connected with his symptoms and memories. From the latent dream thoughts which you will find in this way,

you will see at once how thoroughly justified one is in interpreting the dreams of adults by the same rubrics

as those of children. What is now substituted for the manifest dreamcontent is the real sense of the dream, is

always clearly comprehensible, associated with the impressions of the day before, and appears as the

fulfilling of an unsatisfied wish. The manifest dream, which we remember after waking, may then be

It is also possible by a sort of synthesis to get some insight into the process which bas brought about the

disguise of the unconscious dream thoughts as the manifest dreamcontent. We call this process

"dreamwork" (Traumarbeit). This deserves our fullest theoretical interest, since here as nowhere else we can

study the unsuspected psychic processes which are existent in the unconscious, or, to express it more exactly,

between two such separate systems as the conscious and the unconscious. Among these newly discovered

psychic processes, two, condensation (Verdichtung) and displacement or transvaluation, change of psychic

accent (Verschiebung), stand out most prominently. Dream work is a special case of the reaction of different

mental groupings on each other, and as such is the consequence of psychic fission. In all essential points it

seems identical with the work of disguise, which changes the repressed complex in the case of failing

You will furthermore discover by the analysis of dreams, most convincingly your own, the unsuspected

importance of the rôle which impressions and experiences from early childhood exert on the development of

men. In the dream life the child, as it were, continues his existence in the man, with a retention of all his traits

and wishes, including those which be was obliged to allow to fall into disuse in his later years. With

irresistible might it will be impressed on you by what processes of development, of repression, sublimation

and reaction there arises out of the child, with its peculiar gifts and tendencies, the socalled normal man, the

bearer and partly the victim of our painfully acquired civilization. I will also direct your attention to the fact

that we have discovered from the analysis of dreams that the unconscious makes use of a sort of symbolism,

especially in the presentation of sexual complexes. This symbolism in part varies with the individual, but in

part is of a typical nature, and seems to be identical with the symbolism which we suppose to lie behind our

myths and legends. It is not impossible that these latter creations of the people may find their explanation

Finally, I must remind you that you must not be led astray by the objection that the occurrence of

anxietydreams (Angsttraüme), contradicts our idea of the dream as a wishfulfillment. Apart from the

consideration that anxietydreams also require interpretation before judgment can be passed on them, one

can say quite generally that the anxiety does not depend in such a simple way on the dream content as one

might suppose without more knowledge of the facts, and more attention to the conditions of neurotic anxiety.

Anxiety is one of the ways in which the ego relieves itself of repressed wishes which have become too strong,

and so is easy to explain in the dream, if the dream has gone too far towards the fulfilling of the objectionable

You see that the investigation of dreams was justified by the conclusions which it has given us concerning

things otherwise hard to understand. But we came to it in connection with the psychoanalytic treatment of

neurotics. From what has been said you can easily understand how the interpretation of dreams, if it is not

made too difficult by the resistance of the patient, can lead to a knowledge of the patient's concealed and

repressed wishes and the complexes which he is nourishing. I may now pass to that group of everyday mental

These are the bungling of acts (Feldhandlungen) among normal men as well as among neurotics, to which no

significance is ordinarily attached; the forgetting of things which one is supposed to know and at other times

really does know (for example the temporary forgetting of proper names); mistakes in speaking

(Versprechen), which occur so frequently; analogous mistakes in writing (Verschreiben) and in reading

(Verlesen), the automatic execution of purposive acts in wrong situations Vergreifen) and the loss or breaking

of objects, etc. These are trifles, for which no one has ever sought a psychological determination, which have

passed unchallenged as chance experiences, as consequences of absentmindedness, inattention and similar

conditions. Here, too, are included the acts and gestures executed without being noticed by the subject, to say

nothing of the fact that be attaches no psychic importance to them; as playing and trifling with objects,

These little things, the bungling of acts, like the symptomatic and chance acts (Symptom und

Zufallshandlungen) are not so entirely without meaning as is generally supposed by a sort of tacit agreement.

They have a meaning, generally easy and sure to interpret from the situation in which they occur, and it can

be demonstrated that they either express impulses and purposes which are repressed, hidden if possible from

the consciousness of the individual, or that they spring from exactly the same sort of repressed wishes and

complexes which we have learned to know already as the creators of symptoms and dreams.

It follows that they deserve the rank of symptoms, and their observation, like that of dreams, can lead to the

discovery of the hidden complexes of the psychic life. With their help one will usually betray the most

intimate of his secrets. If these occur so easily and commonly among people in health, with whom repression

has on the whole succeeded fairly well, this is due to their insignificance and their inconspicuous nature. But

they can lay claim to high theoretic value, for they prove the existence of repression and surrogate creations

even under the conditions of health. You have already noticed that the psychoanalyst is distinguished by an

especially strong belief in the determination of the psychic life. For him there is in the expressions of the

psyche nothing trifling, nothing arbitrary and lawless, be expects everywhere a widespread motivation, where

customarily such claims are not made; more than that, he is even prepared to find a manifold motivation of

these psychic expressions, while our supposedly inborn causal need is satisfied with a single psychic cause.

Now keeping in mind the means which we possess for the discovery of the hidden, forgotten, repressed things

in the soul life: the study of the irruptive ideas called up by free association, the patient's dreams, and his

bungled and symptomatic acts; and adding to these the evaluation of other phenomena which emerge during

the psychoanalytic treatment, on which I shall later make a few remarks under the heading of "transfer"

(Ueberträgung), you will come with me to the conclusion that our technique is already sufficiently efficacious

for the solution of the problem of how to introduce the pathogenic psychic material into consciousness, and

so to do away with the suffering brought on by the creation of surrogate symptoms.

The fact that by such therapeutic endeavors our knowledge of the mental life of the normal and the abnormal

is widened and deepened, can of course only be regarded as an especial attraction and superiority of this

I do not know whether you have gained the impression that the technique through whose arsenal I have led

you is a peculiarly difficult one. I consider that on the contrary, for one who has mastered it, it is quite

adapted for use. But so much is sure, that it is not obvious, that it must be learned no less than the histological

You may surprised to learn that in Europe we have heard very frequently judgments passed on

psychoanalysis by persons who knew nothing of its technique and had never practised it. but who demanded

scornfully that we show the correctness of our results. There are among these people some who are not in

other things unacquainted with scientific methods of thought, who for example would not reject the result of

a microscopical research because it cannot be confirmed with the naked eye in anatomical preparations, and

who would not pass judgment until they had used the microscope. But in matters of psychoanalysis

circumstances are really more unfavorable for gaining recognition. Psychoanalysis will bring the repressed in

mental life to conscious acknowledgment, and every one who judges it is himself a man who has such

repressions perhaps only maintained with difficulty. It will consequently call forth the same resistances from

him as from the patient, and this resistance can easily succeed in disguising itself as intellectual rejection, and

bring forward arguments similar to those from which we protect our patients by the basic principles of

psychoanalysis. It is not difficult to substantiate in our opponents the same impairment of intelligence

The arrogance of consciousness which for example rejects dreams so lightly, belongs quite generally

to the strongest protective apparatus which guards us against the breaking through of the unconscious

complexes, and as a result it is hard to convince people of the reality of the unconscious, and to teach them

Ladies and Gentlemen: At this point you will be asking what the technique which I have described has taught

One thing in particular: psychoanalytic investigations trace back the symptoms of disease with really

surprising regularity to impressions from the sexual life, show us that the pathogenic wishes are of the nature

of erotic impulsecomponents (Triebkomponente), and necessitate the assumption that to disturbances of the

erotic sphere must be ascribed the greatest significance among the etiological factors of the disease. This

I know that this assertion will not willingly be credited. Even those investigators who gladly follow my

psychological labors, are inclined to think that I overestimate the etiological share of the sexual moments.

They ask me why other mental excitations should not lead to the phenomena of repression and

surrogatecreation which I have described. I can give them this answer; that I do not know why they should

not do this, I have no objection to their doing it, but experience shows that they do not possess such a

significance, and that they merely support the effect of the sexual moments, without being able to supplant

them. This conclusion was not a theoretical postulate; in the Studien über Hysterie, published in 1895 with

Dr. Breuer, I did not stand on this ground. I was converted to it when my experience was richer and had led

me deeper into the nature of the case. Gentlemen, there are among you some of my closest friends and

adherents, who have travelled to Worcester with me. Ask them, and they will tell you that they all were at

first completely sceptical of the assertion of the determinative significance of the sexual etiology, until they

The conduct of the patients does not make it any easier to convince one's self of the correctness of the view

which I have expressed. Instead of willingly giving us information concerning their sexual life, they try to

conceal it by every means in their power. Men generally are not candid in sexual matters. They do not show

their sexuality freely, but they wear a thick overcoat a fabric of lies to conceal it, as though it were bad

weather in the world of sex. And they are not wrong; sun and wind are not favorable in our civilized society

to any demonstration of sex life. In truth no one can freely disclose his erotic life to his neighbor. But when

your patients see that in your treatment they may disregard the conventional restraints, they lay aside this veil

of lies, and then only are you in a position to formulate a judgment on the question in dispute. Unfortunately

physicians are not favored above the rest of the children of men in their personal relationship to the questions

of the sex life. Many of them are under the ban of that mixture of prudery and lasciviousness which

Now to proceed with the communication of our results. It is true that in another series of cases psychoanalysis

at first traces the symptoms back not to the sexual, but to banal traumatic experiences. But the distinction

loses its significance through other circumstances. The work of analysis which is necessary for the thorough

explanation and complete cure of a case of sickness does not stop in any case with the experience of the time

of onset of the disease, but in every case it goes back to the adolescence and the early childhood of the

patient. Here only do we hit upon the impressions and circumstances which determine the later sickness.

Only the childhood experiences can give the explanation for the sensitivity to later traumata and only when

these memory traces, which almost always are forgotten, are discovered and made conscious, is the power

developed to banish the symptoms. We arrive here at the same conclusion as in the investigation of dreams

that it is the incompatible, repressed wishes of childhood which lend their power to the creation of

symptoms. Without these the reactions upon later traumata discharge normally. But we must consider these

Now I can at any rate be sure of your astonishment. Is there an infantile sexuality? you will ask. Is childhood

not rather that period of life which is distinguished by the lack of the sexual impulse? No, gentlemen, it is not

at all true that the sexual impulse enters into the child at puberty, as the devils in the gospel entered into the

swine. The child has his sexual impulses and activities from the beginning, he brings them with him into the

world, and from these the socalled normal sexuality of adults emerges by a significant development through

manifold stages. It is not very difficult to observe the expressions of this childish sexual activity; it needs

As fate would have it, I am in a position to call a witness for my assertions from your own midst. I show you

here the work of one Dr. Sanford Bell, published in 1902 in the American Journal of Psychology. The author

was a fellow of Clark University, the same institution within whose walls we now stand. In this thesis,

entitled "A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes," which appeared three years before

my "Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, " the author says just what I have been saying to you: "The

emotion of sex love . . . does not make its appearance for the first time at the period of adolescence as has

been thought." He has, as we should say in Europe, worked by the American method, and has gathered not

less than 2,500 positive observations in the course of fifteen years, among them 800 of his own. He says of

the signs by which this amorous condition manifests itself: "The unprejudiced mind, in observing these

manifestations in hundreds of couples of children, cannot escape referring them to sex origin. The most

exacting mind is satisfied when to these observations are added the confessions of those who have as children

experienced the emotion to a marked degree of intensity, and whose memories of childhood are relatively

distinct." Those of you who are unwilling to believe in infantile sexuality will be most astonished to hear that

among those children who fell in love so early not a few are of the tender ages of three, four, and five years.

It would not be surprising if you should believe the observations of a fellowcountryman rather than my own.

Fortunately a short time ago from the analysis of a fiveyearold boy who was suffering from anxiety, an

analysis undertaken with correct technique by his own father,[16] I succeeded in getting a fairly complete

picture of the bodily expressions of the impulse and the mental productions of an early stage of childish

sexual life. And I must remind you that my friend, Dr. C. G. Jung, read you a few hours ago in this room an

observation on a still younger girl who from the same cause as my patient the birth of a little child in the

family betrayed certainly almost the same secret excitement, wish and complexcreation. Accordingly I

am not without hope that you may feel friendly toward this idea of infantile sexuality that was so strange at

first. I might also quote the remarkable example of the Zürich psychiatrist, E. Bleuler, who said a few years

ago openly that he faced my sexual theories incredulous and bewildered, and since that time by his own

observations had substantiated them in their whole scope.[17] If it is true that most men, medical observers

and others, do not want to know anything about the sexual life of the child, the fact is capable of explanation

only too easily. They have forgotten their own infantile sexual activity under the pressure of education for

civilization and do not care to be reminded now of the repressed material. You will be convinced otherwise if

you begin the investigation by a selfanalysis, by an interpretation of your own childhood memories.

Lay aside your doubts and let us evaluate the infantile sexuality of the earliest years.[18] The sexual impulse

of the child manifests itself as a very complex one, it permits of an analysis into many components, which

spring from different sources. It is entirely disconnected from the function of reproduction which it is later to

serve. It permits the child to gain different sorts of pleasure sensations, which we include, by the analogues

and connections which they show, under the term sexual pleasures. The great source of infantile sexual

pleasure is the autoexcitation of certain particularly sensitive parts of the body; besides the genitals are

included the rectum and the opening of the urinary canal, and also the skin and other sensory surfaces. Since

in this first phase of child sexual life the satisfaction is found on the child's own body and has nothing to do

with any other object, we call this phase after a word coined by Havelock Ellis, that of "autoerotism." The

parts of the body significant in giving sexual pleasure we call "erogenous zones." The thumbsucking

(Ludeln) or passionate sucking (Wonnesaugen) of very young children is a good example of such an

autoerotic satisfaction of an erogenous zone. The first scientific observer of this phenomenon, a specialist in

children's diseases in Budapest by the name of Lindner, interpreted these rightly as sexual satisfaction and

described exhaustively their transformation into other and higher forms of sexual gratification.[19] Another

sexual satisfaction of this time of life is the excitation of the genitals by masturbation, which has such a great

significance for later life and, in the case of many individuals, is never fully overcome. Besides this and other

autoerotic manifestations we see very early in the child the impulsecomponents of sexual pleasure, or, as

we may say, of the libido, which presupposes a second person as its object. These impulses appear in opposed

pairs, as active and passive. The most important representatives of this group are the pleasure in inflicting

pain (sadism) with its passive opposite (masochism) and active and passive exhibition pleasure (Schaulust).

From the first of these later pairs splits off the curiosity for knowledge, as from the latter the impulse toward

artistic and theatrical representation. Other sexual manifestations of the child can already be regarded from

the viewpoint of objectchoice, in which the second person plays the prominent part. The significance of

this was primarily based upon motives of the impulse of selfpreservation. The difference between the sexes

plays, however, in the child no very great rôle. One may attribute to every child, without wronging him, a bit

The sexual life of the child, rich, but dissociated, in which each single impulse goes about the business of

arousing pleasure independently of every other, is later correlated and organized in two general directions, so

that by the close of puberty the definite sexual character of the individual is practically finally determined.

The single impulses subordinate themselves to the overlordship of the genital zone, so that the whole sexual

life is taken over into the service of procreation, and their gratification is now significant only so far as they

help to prepare and promote the true sexual act. On the other hand, objectchoice prevails over autoerotism,

so that now in the sexual life all components of the sexual impulse are satisfied in the loved person. But not

all the original impulse components are given a share in the final shaping of the sexual life. Even before the

advent of puberty certain impulses have undergone the most energetic repression under the impulse of

education, and mental forces like shame, disgust and morality are developed, which, like sentinels, keep the

repressed wishes in subjection. When there comes, in puberty, the high tide of sexual desire it finds dams in

this creation of reactions and resistances. These guide the outflow into the socalled normal channels, and

The most important of these repressed impulses are koprophilism, that is, the pleasure in children connected

with the excrements; and, further, the tendencies attaching themselves to the persons of the primitive

Gentlemen, a sentence of general pathology says that every process of development brings with it the germ of

pathological dispositions in so far as it may be inhibited, delayed, or incompletely carried out. This holds for

the development of the sexual function, with its many complications. It is not smoothly completed in all

individuals, and may leave behind either abnormalities or disposition to later diseases by the way of later

falling back or regression. It may happen that not all the partial impulses subordinate themselves to the rule of

the genital zone. Such an impulse which has remained disconnected brings about what we call a perversion,

which may replace the normal sexual goal by one of its own. It may happen, as has been said before, that the

autoerotism is not fully overcome, as many sorts of disturbances testify. The originally equal value of both

sexes as sexual objects may be maintained and an inclination to homosexual activities in adult life result from

this, which, under suitable conditions, rises to the level of exclusive homosexuality. This series of

disturbances corresponds to the direct inhibition of development of the sexual function, it includes the

perversions and the general infantilism of the sex life that are not seldom met with.

The disposition to neuroses is to be derived in another way from an injury to the development of the sex life.

The neuroses are related to the perversions as the negative to the positive; in them we find the same

impulsecomponents as in perversions, as bearers of the complexes and as creators of the symptoms; but here

they work from out the unconscious. They have undergone a repression, but in spite of this they maintain

themselves in the unconscious. Psychoanalysis teaches us that overstrong expression of the impulse in very

early life leads to a sort of fixation (Fixirung), which then offers a weak point in the articulation of the sexual

function. If the exercise of the normal sexual function meets with hindrances in later life, this repression,

dating from the time of development, is broken through at just that point at which the infantile fixation took

You will now perhaps make the objection: "But all that is not sexuality." I have used the word in a very much

wider sense than you are accustomed to understand it. This I willingly concede. But it is a question whether

you do not rather use the word in much too narrow a sense when you restrict it to the realm of procreation.

You sacrifice by that the understanding of perversions; of the connection between perversion, neurosis and

normal sexual life; and have no means of recognizing, in its true significance, the easily observable beginning

of the somatic and mental sexual life of the child. But however you decide about the use of the word,

remember that the psychoanalyst understands sexuality in that full sense to which he is led by the evaluation

Now we turn again to the sexual development of the child. We still have much to say here, since we have

given more attention to the somatic than to the mental expressions of the sexual life. The primitive

objectchoice of the child, which is derived from his need of help, demands our further interest. It first

attaches to all persons to whom he is accustomed, but soon these give way in favor of his parents. The

relation of the child to his parents is, as both direct observation of the child and later analytic investigation of

adults agree, not at all free from elements of sexual accessory excitation (Miterregung). The child takes both

parents, and especially one, as an object of his erotic wishes. Usually he follows in this the stimulus given by

his parents, whose tenderness has very clearly the character of a sex manifestation, though inhibited so far as

its goal is concerned. As a rule, the father prefers the daughter, the mother the son; the child reacts to this

situation, since, as son, he wishes himself in the place of his father, as daughter, in the place of the mother.

The feelings awakened in these relations between parents and children, and, as a resultant of them, those

among the children in relation to each other, are not only positively of a tender, but negatively of an inimical

sort. The complex built up in this way is destined to quick repression, but it still exerts a great and lasting

effect from the unconscious. We must express the opinion that this with its ramifications presents the nuclear

complex of every neurosis, and so we are prepared to meet with it in a not less effectual way in the other

fields of mental life. The myth of King Œdipus, who kills his father and wins his mother as a wife is only the

slightly altered presentation of the infantile wish, rejected later by the opposing barriers of incest.

Shakespeare's tale of Hamlet rests on the same basis of an incest complex, though better concealed. At the

time when the child is still ruled by the still unrepressed nuclear complex, there begins a very significant part

of his mental activity which serves sexual interest. He begins to investigate the question of where children

come from and guesses more than adults imagine of the true relations by deduction from the signs which be

sees. Usually his interest in this investigation is awakened by the threat to his welfare through the birth of

another child in the family, in whom at first he sees only a rival. Under the influence of the partial impulses

which are active in him be arrives at a number of "infantile sexual theories," as that the same male genitals

belong to both sexes, that children are conceived by eating and born through the opening of the intestine, and

that sexual intercourse is to be regarded as an inimical act, a sort of overpowering.

But just the unfinished nature of his sexual constitution and the gaps in his knowledge brought about by the

hidden condition of the feminine sexual canal, cause the infant investigator to discontinue his work as a

failure. The facts of this childish investigation itself as well as the infant sex theories created by it are of

determinative significance in the building of the child's character, and in the content of his later neuroses.

It is unavoidable and quite normal that the child should make his parents the objects of his first

objectchoice. But his libido must not remain fixed on these first chosen objects, but must take them merely

as a prototype and transfer from these to other persons in the time of definite objectchoice The breaking

loose (Ablösung,) of the child from his parents is thus a problem impossible to escape if the social virtue of

the young individual is not to be impaired. During the time that the repressive activity is making its choice

among the partial sexual impulses and later, when the influence of the parents, which in the most essential

way has furnished the material for these repressions, is lessened, great problems fall to the work of education,

which at present certainly does not always solve them in the most intelligent and economic way.

Gentlemen, do not think that with these explanations of the sexual life and the sexual development of the

child we have too far departed from psychoanalysis and the cure of neurotic disturbances. If you like, you

may regard the psychoanalytic treatment only as a continued education for the overcoming of

Ladies and Gentlemen: With the discovery of infantile sexuality and the tracing back of the neurotic

symptoms to erotic impulsecomponents we have arrived at several unexpected formulae for expressing the

nature and tendencies of neurotic diseases. We see that the individual falls ill when in consequence of outer

hindrances or inner lack of adaptability the satisfaction of the erotic needs in the sphere of reality is denied.

We see that he then flees to sickness, in order to find with its help a surrogate satisfaction for that denied him.

We recognize that the symptoms of illness contain fractions of the sexual activity of the individual, or his

whole sexual life, and we find in the turning away from reality the chief tendency and also the chief injury of

the sickness. We may guess that the resistance of our patients against the cure is not a simple one, but is

composed of many motives. Not only does the ego of the patient strive against the giving up of the

repressions by which it has changed itself from its original constitution into its present form, but also the

sexual impulses may not renounce their surrogate satisfaction so long as it is not certain that they can be

The flight from the unsatisfying reality into what we call, on account of its biologically injurious nature,

disease, but which is never without an individual gain in pleasure for the patient, takes place over the path of

regression, the return to earlier phases of the sexual life, when satisfaction was not lacking. This regression is

seemingly a twofold one, a temporal, in so far as the libido or erotic need falls back to a temporally earlier

stage of development, and a formal, since the original and primitive psychic means of expression are applied

to the expression of this need. Both sorts of regression focus in childhood and have their common point in the

The deeper you penetrate into the pathogenesis of neurotic diseases, the more the connection of neuroses with

other products of human mentality, even the most valuable, will be revealed to you. You will be reminded

that we men, with the high claims of our civilization and under the pressure of our repressions, find reality

generally quite unsatisfactory and so keep up a life of fancy in which we love to compensate for what is

lacking in the sphere of reality by the production of wishfulfillments. In these phantasies is often contained

very much of the particular constitutional essence of personality and of its tendencies, repressed in real life.

The energetic and successful man is he who succeeds by dint of labor in transforming his wish fancies into

reality. Where this is not successful in consequence of the resistance of the outer world and the weakness of

the individual, there begins the turning away from reality. The individual takes refuge in his satisfying world

of fancy. Under certain favorable conditions it still remains possible for him to find another connecting link

between these fancies and reality, instead of permanently becoming a stranger to it through the regression

into the infantile. If the individual who is displeased with reality is in possession of that artistic talent which

is still a psychological riddle, be can transform his fancies into artistic creations. So he escapes the fate of a

neurosis and wins back his connection with reality by this roundabout way.[20] Where this opposition to the

real world exists, but this valuable talent fails or proves insufficient, it is unavoidable that the libido,

following the origin of the fancies, succeeds by means of regression in revivifying the infantile wishes and so

producing a neurosis. The neurosis takes, in our time, the place of the cloister, in which were accustomed to

take refuge all those whom life had undeceived or who felt themselves too weak for life. Let me give at this

point the main result at which we have arrived by the psychoanalytic investigation of neurotics, namely, that

neuroses have no peculiar psychic content of their own, which is not also to be found in healthy states; or, as

C. G. Jung has expressed it, neurotics fall ill of the same complexes with which we sound, people struggle. It

depends on quantitative relationships, on the relations of the forces wrestling with each other, whether the

struggle leads to health, to a neurosis, or to compensatory overfunctioning (Ueberleistung).

Ladies and gentlemen, I have still withheld from you the most remarkable experience which corroborates our

assumptions of the sexual impulseforces of neurotics. Every time that we treat a neurotic

psychoanalytically, there occurs in him the socalled phenomenon of transfer (Uebertragung), that is, he

applies to the person of the physician a great amount of tender emotion, often mixed with enmity, which has

no foundation in any real relation, and must be derived in every respect from the old wishfancies of the

patient which have become unconscious. Every fragment of his emotive life, which can no longer be called

back into memory, is accordingly lived over by the patient in his relations to the physician, and only by such

a living of them over in the "transfer" is he convinced of the existence and the power of these unconscious

sexual excitations. The symptoms, which, to use a simile from chemistry, are the precipitates of earlier love

experiences (in the widest sense), can only be dissolved in the higher temperature of the experience of

transfer and transformed into other psychic products. The physician plays in this reaction, to use an excellent

expression of S. Ferenczi,[21] the rôle of a catalytic ferment, which temporarily attracts to itself the affect

The study of transfer can also give you the key to the understanding of hypnotic suggestion, which we at first

used with our patients as a technical means of investigation of the unconscious. Hypnosis showed itself at

that time to be a therapeutic help, but a hindrance to the scientific knowledge of the real nature of the case,

since it cleared away the psychic resistances from a certain field, only to pile them up in an unscalable wall at

the boundaries of this field. You must not think that the phenomenon of transfer, about which I can

unfortunately say only too little here, is created by the influence of the psychoanalytic treatment. The transfer

arises spontaneously in all human relations and in the relations of the patient to the physician; it is

everywhere the especial bearer of therapeutic influences, and it works the stronger the less one knows of its

presence. Accordingly psychoanalysis does not create it, it merely discloses it to consciousness, and avails

itself of it, in order to direct the psychic processes to the wished for goal. But I cannot leave the theme of

transfer without stressing the fact that this phenomenon is of decisive importance to convince not only the

patient, but also the physician. I know that all my adherents were first convinced of the correctness of my

views through their experience with transfer, and I can very well conceive that one may not win such a surety

of judgment so long as he makes no psychoanalysis, and so has not himself observed the effects of transfer.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am of the opinion that there are, on the intellectual side, two hindrances to

acknowledging the value of the psychoanalytic viewpoint: first, the fact that we are not accustomed to

reckon with a strict determination of mental life, which holds without exception, and second, the lack of

knowledge of the peculiarities through which unconscious mental processes differ from those conscious ones

with which we are familiar. One of the most widespread resistances against the work of psychoanalysis with

patients as with persons in health reduces to the latter of the two moments. One is afraid of doing harm by

psychoanalysis, one is anxious about calling up into consciousness the repressed sexual impulses of the

patient, as though there were danger that they could overpower the higher ethical strivings and rob him of his

cultural acquisitions. One can see that the patient has sore places in his soul life, but one is afraid to touch

them, lest his suffering be increased. We may use this analogy. It is, of course, better not to touch diseased

places when one can only cause pain. But we know that the surgeon does not refrain from the investigation

and reinvestigation of the seat of illness, if his invasion has as its aim the restoration of lasting health.

Nobody thinks of blaming him for the unavoidable difficulties of the investigation or the phenomena of

reaction from the operation, if these only accomplish their purpose, and gain for the patient a final cure by

temporarily making his condition worse. The case is similar in psychoanalysis; it can lay claim to the same

things as surgery; the increase of pain which takes place in the patient during the treatment is very much less

than that which the surgeon imposes upon him, and especially negligible in comparison with the pains of

serious illness. But the consequence which is feared, that of a disturbance of the cultural character by the

impulse which has been freed from repression, is wholly impossible. In relation to this anxiety we must

consider what our experiences have taught us with certainty, that the somatic and mental power of a wish, if

once its repression has not succeeded, is incomparably stronger when it is unconscious than when it is

conscious, so that by being made conscious it can only be weakened. The unconscious wish cannot be

influenced, is free from all strivings in the contrary direction, while the conscious is inhibited by those wishes

which are also conscious and which strive against it. The work of psychoanalysis accordingly presents a

better substitute, in the service of the highest and most valuable cultural strivings, for the repression which

Now what is the fate of the wishes which have become free by psychoanalysis, by what means shall they be

made harmless for the life of the individual? There are several ways. The general consequence is, that the

wish is consumed during the work by the correct mental activity of those better tendencies which are opposed

to it. The repression is supplanted by a condemnation carried through with the best means at one's disposal.

This is possible, since for the most part we have to abolish only the effects of earlier developmental stages of

the ego. The individual for his part only repressed the useless impulse, because at that time he was himself

still incompletely organized and weak; in his present maturity and strength he can, perhaps, conquer without

injury to himself that which is inimical to him. A second issue of the work of psychoanalysis may be that the

revealed unconscious impulses can now arrive at those useful applications which, in the case of undisturbed

development, they would have found earlier. The extirpation of the infantile wishes is not at all the ideal aim

of development. The neurotic has lost, by his repressions, many sources of mental energy whose contingents

would have been very valuable for his character building and his life activities. We know a far more

purposive process of development, the socalled sublimation (Sublimirung), by which the energy of infantile

wishexcitations is not secluded, but remains capable of application, while for the particular excitations,

instead of becoming useless, a higher, eventually no longer sexual, goal is set up. The components of the

sexual instinct are especially distinguished by such a capacity for the sublimation and exchange of their

sexual goal for one more remote and socially more valuable. To the contributions of the energy won in such a

way for the functions of our mental life we probably owe the highest cultural consequences. A repression

taking place at an early period excludes the sublimation of the repressed impulse; after the removal of the

We must not neglect, also, to glance at the third of the possible issues. A certain part of the suppressed

libidinous excitation has a right to direct satisfaction and ought to find it in life. The claims of our civilization

make life too hard for the greater part of humanity, and so further the aversion to reality and the origin of

neuroses, without producing an excess of cultural gain by this excess of sexual repression. We ought not to

go so far as to fully neglect the original animal part of our nature, we ought not to forget that the happiness of

individuals cannot be dispensed with as one of the aims of our culture. The plasticity of the

sexualcomponents, manifest in their capacity for sublimation, may cause a great temptation to accomplish

greater cultureeffects by a more and more far reaching sublimation. But just as little as with our machines

we expect to change more than a certain fraction of the applied heat into useful mechanical work, just as little

ought we to strive to separate the sexual impulse in its whole extent of energy from its peculiar goal. This

cannot succeed, and if the narrowing of sexuality is pushed too far it will have all the evil effects of a

I do not know whether you will regard the exhortation with which I close as a presumptuous one. I only

venture the indirect presentation of my conviction, if I relate an old tale, whose application you may make

yourselves. German literature knows a town called Schilda, to whose inhabitants were attributed all sorts of

clever pranks. The wiseacres, so the story goes, had a horse, with whose powers of work they were well

satisfied, and against whom they had only one grudge, that he consumed so much expensive oats. They

concluded that by good management they would break him of this bad habit, by cutting down his rations by

several stalks each day, until he had learned to do without them altogether. Things went finely for a while, the

horse was weaned to one stalk a day, and on the next day he would at last work without fodder. On the

morning of this day the malicious horse was found dead; the citizens of Schilda could not understand why he

had died. We should be inclined to believe that the horse had starved, and that without a certain ration of oats

I thank you for calling me here to speak, and for the attention which you have given me.

Footnotes 1 Lectures delivered at the Celebration of the Twentieth Anniversary of the opening of Clark

University, Sept., 1909; translated from the German by Harry W. Chase, Fellow in Psychology, Clark

2 Dr. Joseph Breuer, born 1842, corresponding member of the "Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften,"

is known by works on respiration and the physiology of the sense of equilibrium.

3 "Studien über Hysterie," 1895, Deuticke, Vienna. Second edition, 1909. Parts of my contributions to this

book have been translated into English by Dr. A. A. Brill, of New York. ("Selected Papers on Hysteria and

4 I know that this view no longer holds today, but in the lecture I take myself and my hearers back to the

time before 1880. If things have become different since that time it has been largely due to the work the

8 Loc Cit., 2d ed. Pp. 4346. A selection from this book, augmented by several later treatises on hysteria, lies

before me, in an English translation by Dr. A. A. Brill, of New York. It bears the title "Selected Papers on

Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses," 1909. (No. 4 of the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series,

9 Or rather the later copy of such a monument. The name "Charing" is itself, as Dr. E. Jones tells me, derived

10 This case has been translated by Dr. Brill in "Selected papers on hysteria," etc., p. 31 F 4.

16 Analyse der Phobie eines 5jährigen Knaben. Jahrbuch f. Psychoanalytische u. psychopathologische

Forschungen. B. 1, H. 1., 1909. [In the original, this footnote is cited in the text as note 2 on page 208, but is

17 Bleuler: Sexuelle Abnormitäten der Kinder. Jahrbuch der schweizer, Gesellschaft für

20 Compare, Rank, Otto: Der Künstler, Ansätze zu einer SexualPsychologie. 56 p. Heller Co., Wien, 1907.

21 S. Ferenczi: Introduction und Uebertragung. Jahrbuch f. psychoanal. u. psychopath. Forschungen, Bd. 1,