V. 1. THE complexity of our subject-matter must be an excuse for the fact that none of the chapter-headings of this book quite correspond to their contents, and that in turning to new aspects of the topic we are constantly harking back to matters that have already been dealt with.

V. 2. So haben wir wiederholt gesagt, daß das Ich sich zum guten Teil aus Identifizierungen bildet, welche aufgelassene Besetzungen des Es ablösen, daß die ersten dieser Identifizierungen sich regelmäßig als besondere Instanz im Ich gebärden, sich als Über-Ich dem Ich entgegenstellen, während das erstarkte Ich sich späterhin gegen solche Identifizierungseinflüsse resistenter verhalten mag. Das Über-Ich verdankt seine besondere Stellung im Ich oder zum Ich einem Moment, das von zwei Seiten her eingeschätzt werden soll, erstens, daß es die erste Identifizierung ist, die vorfiel, solange das Ich noch schwach war, und zweitens, daß es der Erbe des Odipuskomplexes ist, also die großartigsten Objekte ins Ich einführte. Es verhält sich gewissermaßen zu den späteren Ichveränderungen wie die primäre Sexualphase der Kindheit zum späteren Sexualleben nach der Pubertat. Obwohl allen späteren Einflüssen zugänglich, behält es doch zeitlebens den Charakter, der ihm durch seinen Ursprung aus dem Vaterkomplex verliehen ist, nämlich die Fähigkeit, sich dem Ich entgegenzustellen und es zu meistern. Es ist das Denkmal der einstigen Schwäche und Abhängigkeit des Ichs und setzt seine Herrschaft auch über das reife Ich fort. Wie das Kind unter dem Zwange stand, seinen Eltern zu gehorchen, so unterwirft sich das Ich dem kategorischen Imperativ seines Über-Ichs.

V. 2. Thus we have said repeatedly that the ego is formed to a great extent out of identifications which take the place of abandoned cathexes by the id; that the first of these identifications always behave as a special agency in the ego and stand apart from the ego in the form of a super-ego, while later on, as it grows stronger, the ego may become more resistant to the influences of such identifications. The super-ego owes its special position in the ego, or in relation to the ego, to a factor which must be considered from two sides: on the one hand it was the first identification and one which took place while the ego was still feeble, and on the other hand it is the heir to the Oedipus complex and has thus introduced the most momentous objects into the ego. The super-ego’s relation to the later alterations of the ego is roughly similar to that of the primary sexual phase of childhood to later sexual life after puberty. Although it is accessible to all later influences, it nevertheless preserves throughout life the character given to it by its derivation from the father-complex namely, the capacity to stand apart from the ego and to master it. It is memorial of the former weakness and dependence of the ego, and the mature ego remains subject to its domination. As the child was once under a compulsion to obey its parents, so the ego submits to the categorical imperative of its super-ego.

V. 3. Ama üst-benin O’nun ilk nesne-yatırımlarından, Ödipus karmaşasından türeyişinin üst-ben için çok daha öte anlamları vardır. Bu türeme, daha önce gördüğümüz gibi, üst-beni O’nun soygelişimsel kazanımları ile ilişkiye getirir ve onda tortularını geride O’da bırakan önceki ben-oluşumlarının yeniden-bedenselleşmesine götürür. Böylece üst-ben sürekli olarak O’ya yakın durur ve ben karşısında onun temsilcisi olarak davranabilir. O’nun derinliklerine ulaşır ve bu nedenle bilinçten benin olduğundan daha uzak kalır.<sup>55

55</sup>Denebilir ki ruhçözümsel ya da ruhbilimötesi ben de anatomik ben gibi — ‘kortikal homonkulus’ gibi — kafasının üstünde durur.

V. 3. Die Abkunft von den ersten Objektbesetzungen des Es, also vom Ödipuskomplex, bedeutet aber für das Über-Ich noch mehr. Sie bringt es, wie wir bereits ausgeführt haben, in Beziehung zu den phylogenetischen Erwerbungen des Es und macht es zur Reinkarnation früherer Ichbildungen, die ihre Niederschläge im Es hinterlassen haben. Somit steht das Über-Ich dem Es dauernd nahe und kann dem Ich gegenüber dessen Vertretung führen. Es taucht tief ins Es ein, ist dafür entfernter vom Bewußtsein als das Ich.<sup>19

19</sup>Man kann sagen: Auch das psychoanalytische oder metapsychnlogische Ich steht auf dem Kopf wie das anatomische, das Gehimmännehen.

V. 3. But the derivation of the super-ego from the first object-cathexes of the id, from the Oedipus complex, signifies even more for it. This derivation, as we have already shown [p. 376 ff.], brings it into relation with the phylogenetic acquisitions of the id and makes it a reincarnation of former ego-structures which have left their precipitates behind in the id. Thus the super-ego is always close to the id and can act as its representative vis-a-vis the ego. It reaches deep down into the id and for that reason is farther from consciousness than the ego is.<sup>63

64</sup>It may be said that the psychoanalytic or metapsychological ego stands on its head no less than the anatomical ego — the ‘cortical homonculus’ [p 365].

V. 4. Bu ilişkileri değerlendirmenin en iyi yolu çoktandır yeniliklerini yitirmiş ama henüz kuramsal olarak işlenmeyi bekleyen belli klinik olgulara dönmekten geçer.

V. 4. Diese Beziehungen würdigen wir am besten, wenn wir uns gewissen klinischen Tatsachen zuwenden, die längst keine Neuheit sind, aber ihrer theoretischen Verarbeitung noch warten.

V. 4. We shall best appreciate these relations by turning to certain clinical facts, which have long since lost their novelty but which still await theoretical discussion.

V. 5. Es gibt Personen, die sich in der analytischen Arbeit ganz sonderbar benehmen. Wenn man ihnen Hoffnung gibt und ihnen Zufriedenheit mit dem Stand der Behandlung zeigt, scheinen sie unbefriedigt und verschlechtern regelmäßig ihr Befinden. Man hält das anfangs für Trotz und Bemühen, dem Arzt ihre Überlegenheit zu bezeugen. Später kommt man zu einer tieferen und gerechteren Auffassung. Man überzeugt sich nicht nur, daß diese Personen kein Lob und keine Anerkennung vertragen, sondern, daß sie auf die Fortschritte der Kur in verkehrter Weise reagieren. Jede Partiallösung, die eine Besserung oder zeitweiliges Aussetzen der Symptome zur Folge haben sollte und bei anderen auch hat, ruft bei ihnen eine momentane Verstärkung ihres Leidens hervor, sie verschlimmern sich während der Behandlung, anstatt sich zu bessern. Sie zeigen die sogenannte negative therapeutische Reaktion.

V. 5. There are certain people who behave in a quite peculiar fashion during the work of analysis. When one speaks hopefully to them or expresses satisfaction with the progress of the treatment, they show signs of discontent and their condition invariably becomes worse. One begins by regarding this as defiance and as an attempt to prove their superiority to the physician, but later one comes to take a deeper and juster view. One becomes convinced, not only that such people cannot endure any praise or appreciation, but that they react inversely to the progress of the treatment. Every partial solution that ought to result, and in other people does result, in an improvement or a temporary suspension of symptoms produces in them for the time being an exacerbation of their illness; they get worse during the treatment instead of getting better. They exhibit what is known as a ‘negative therapeutic reaction’.

V. 6. Kein Zweifel, daß sich bei ihnen etwas der Genesung widersetzt, daß deren Annäherung wie eine Gefahr gefürchtet wird. Man sagt, bei diesen Personen hat nicht der Genesungswille, sondern das Krankheitsbedürfnis die Oberhand. Analysiert man diesen Widerstand in gewohnter Weise, zieht die Trotzeinstellung gegen den Arzt, die Fixierung an die Formen des Krankheitsgewinnes von ihm ab, so bleibt doch das meiste noch bestehen, und dies erweist sich als das stärkste Hindernis der Wiederherstellung, stärker als die uns bereits bekannten der narzißtischen Unzugänglichkeit, der negativen Einstellung gegen den Arzt und des Haftens am Krankheitsgewinne.

V. 6. There is no doubt that there is something in these people that sets itself against their recovery, and its approach is dreaded as though it were a danger. We are accustomed to say that the need for illness has got the upper hand in them over the desire for recovery. If we analyse this resistance in the usual way—then, even after allowance has been made for an attitude of defiance towards the physician and for fixation to the various forms of gain from illness, the greater part of it is still left over; and this reveals itself as the most powerful of all obstacles to recovery, more powerful than the familiar ones of narcissistic inaccessibility, a negative attitude towards the physician and clinging to the gain from illness.

V. 7. Man kommt endlich zur Einsicht, daß es sich um einen sozusagen ‘‘moralischen’’ Faktor handelt, um ein Schuld gefühl, welches im Kranksein seine Befriedigung findet und auf die Strafe des Leidens nicht verzichten will. An dieser wenig tröstlichen Aufklärung darf man endgültig festhalten. Aber dies Schuldgefühl ist für den Kranken stumm, es sagt ihm nicht, daß er schuldig ist, er fühlt sich nicht schuldig, sondern krank. Dies Schuldgefühl äußert sich nur als schwer reduzierbarer Widerstand gegen die Herstellung. Es ist auch besonders schwierig, den Kranken von diesem Motiv seines Krankbleibens zu überzeugen, er wird sich an die näherliegende Erklärung halten, daß die analytische Kur nicht das richtige Mittel ist, ihm zu helfen.<sup>20

20</sup> Der Kampf gegen des Hindernis des unbewußten Schuldgefühls wird dem Analytiker nicht leicht gemacht. Man kann direkt nichts dagegen tun, indirekt nichts anderes, als daß man langsam seine unbewußt verdrängten Begründungen aufdeckt, wobei es sich allmählich in bewußtes Schuld gefühl verwandelt. Eine besondere Chance der Beeinflussung gewinnt man, wenn dies ubw Schuldgefühl ein enrlehntes ist, das heißt das Ergebnis der Identifizierung mit einer anderen Person, die einmal Objekt einer erotischen Besetzung war. Eine solche Übernahme des Schuldgefühls ist oft der einzige, schwer kenntliche Rest der aufgegebenen Liebesbeziehung. Die Ähnlichkeit mit dem Vorgang bei Melanchohe ist dabei unverkennbar. Kann man diese einstige Objektbesetzung hinter dem uhw Schuldgefühl aufdekken, so ist die therapeutische Aufgabe oft glänzend gelöst, sonst ist der Ausgang der therapeutischen Bemühung keineswegs gesichert. Er hängt in erster Linie von der Intensität des Schuldgefühls ab, welcher die Therapie oft keine Gegenkraft von gleicher Größenordnung entgegenstellen kann. Vielleicht auch davon, ob die Person des Analytikers es zuläßt, daß sie vom Kranken an die Stelle seines Ichideals gesetzt werde, womit die Versuchung verbunden ist, gegen den Kranken die Rolle des Propheten, Seelenretters, Heilands zu spielen. Da die Regeln der Analyse einer solchen Verwendung der ärztlichen Persönlichkeit entschieden widerstreben, ist ehrlich zuzugeben, daß hier eine neue Schranke für die Wirkung der Analyse gegeben ist, die ja die krankhaften Reaktionen nicht unmöglich machen, sondern dem Ich des Kranken die Freiheit schaffen soll, sich so oder anders zu entscheiden.

V. 7. In the end we come to see that we are dealing with what may be called a ‘moral’ factor, a sense of guilt, which is finding its satisfaction in the illness and refuses to give up the punishment of suffering. We shall be right in regarding this disheartening explanation as final But as far as the patient is concerned this sense of guilt is dumb; it does not tell him he is guilty; he does not feel guilty, he feels ill. This sense of guilt expresses itself only as a resistance to recovery which it is extremely difficult to overcome. It is also particularly difficult to convince the patient that this motive lies behind his continuing to be ill; he holds fast to the more obvious explanation that treatment by analysis is not the right remedy for his case.<sup>65

65</sup>The battle with the obstacle of an unconscious sense of guilt is not made easy for the analyst. Nothing can be done against it directly, and nothing indirectly but the slow procedure of unmasking its unconscious repressed roots, and of thus gradually changing it into a conscious sense of guilt. One has a special opportunity for influencing it when this Ucs. sense of guilt is a ‘borrowed’ one—when it is the product of an identification with some other person who was once the object of an erotic cathexis. A sense of guilt that has been adopted in this way is often the sole remaining trace of the abandoned love-relation and not at all easy to recognize as such. (The likeness between this process and what happens in melancholia is unmistakable.) If one can unmask this former object-cathexis behind the Ucs. sense of guilt, the therapeutic success is often brilliant, but otherwise the outcome of one’s efforts is by no means certain. It depends principally on the intensity of the sense of guilt; there is often no counteracting force of a similar order of strength which the treatment can oppose to it. Perhaps it may depend, too, on whether the personality of the analyst allows of the patient’s putting him in the place of his ego idea], and this involves a temptation for the analyst to play the part of prophet, saviour and redeemer to the patient. Since the rules of analysis are diametrically opposed to the physician’s making use of hit personality in any such manner, it must be honestly confessed that here we have another limitation to the effectiveness of analysis; after all, analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient’s ego freedom to decide one way or the other.—[Freud returned to this pie in his paper on ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’ (1924c), pp.420-below, where he discussed the distinction between the unconscious sense of guilt and moral masochism. See also Chapters VII and VIII of Civilization and its Discontent (1930a).]

V. 8. Burada verilen betimleme en aşırı olaylara karşılık düşer, ama daha küçük bir ölçüde birçok durumda, belki de tüm ağır sinirce durumlarında dikkate alınması gerekir. Dahası, belki de sinirceli bir hastalığın ağırlığını kesin olarak belirleyen şey tam olarak bu etmen, eş deyişle ben-idealinin davranışıdır. Bu yüzden suçluluk duygusunun kendini değişik koşullar altında anlatması üzerine kimi daha öte noktalara dokunmadan geçmeyeceğiz.

V. 8. Was hier beschrieben wurde, entspricht den extremsten Vorkommnissen, dürfte aber in geringerem Ausmaß für sehr viele, vielleicht für alle schwereren Fälle von Neurose in Betracht kommen. Ja, noch mehr, vielleicht ist es gerade dieser Faktor, das Verhalten des Ichideals, der die Schwere einer neurotischen Erkrankung maßgebend bestimmt. Wir wollen darum einigen weiteren Bemerkungen über die Äußerung des Schuldgefühls unter verschiedenen Bedingungen nicht aus dem Wege gehen.

V. 8. The description we have given applies to the most extreme instances of this state of affairs, but in a lesser measure this factor has to be reckoned with in very many cases, perhaps in all comparatively severe cases of neurosis. In fact it may be precisely this element in the situation, the attitude of the ego ideal, that determines the severity of a neurotic illness. We shall not hesitate, therefore, to discuss rather more fully the way in which the sense of guilt expresses itself under different conditions.

V. 9. An interpretation of the normal, conscious sense of guilt (conscience) presents no difficulties; it is based on the tension between the ego and the ego ideal and is the expression of a condemnation of the ego by its critical agency. The feelings of inferiority so well known in neurotics are presumably not far removed from it. In two very familiar maladies the sense of guilt is over-strongly conscious; in them the ego ideal displays particular severity and often rages against the ego in a cruel fashion. The attitude of the ego ideal in these two conditions, obsessional neurosis and melancholia, presents, alongside of this similarity, differences that are no less significant.

V. 10. In certain forms of obsessional neurosis the sense of guilt is over-noisy but cannot justify itself to the ego. Consequently the patient’s ego rebels against the imputation of guilt and seeks the physician’s support in repudiating it. It would be folly to acquiesce in this, for to do so would have no effect. Analysis eventually shows that the super-ego is being influenced by processes that have remained unknown to the ego. It is possible to discover the repressed impulses which are really at the bottom of the sense of guilt. Thus in this case the super-ego knew more than the ego about the unconscious id.

V. 11. In melancholia the impression that the super-ego has obtained a hold upon consciousness is even stronger. But here the ego ventures no objection; it admits its guilt and submits to the punishment. We understand the difference. In obsessional neurosis what were in question were objectionable impulses which remained outside the ego, while in melancholia the object to which the super-ego’s wrath applies has been taken into the ego through identification.

V. 12. Es ist gewiß nicht selbstverständlich, daß bei diesen beiden neurotischen Affektionen das Schuldgefühl eine so außerordentliche Stärke erreicht, aber das Hauptproblem der Situation liegt doch an anderer Stelle. Wir schieben seine Erörterung auf, bis wir die anderen Fälle behandelt haben, in denen das Schuldgefühl unbewußt bleibt.

V. 12. It is certainly not clear why the sense of guilt reaches such an extraordinary strength in these two neurotic disorders; but the main problem presented in this state of affairs lies in another direction. We shall postpone discussion of it until we have dealt with the other cases in which the sense of guilt remains unconscious. [See p. 394.]

V. 13. It is essentially in hysteria and in states of a hysterical type that this is found. Here the mechanism by which the sense of guilt remains unconscious is easy to discover. The hysterical ego fends off a distressing perception with which the criticisms of its super-ego threaten it, in the same way in which it is in the habit of fending off an unendurable object-cathexis—by an act of repression. It is the ego, therefore, that is responsible for the sense of guilt remaining unconscious. We know that as a rule the ego carries out repressions in the service and at the behest of its super-ego; but this is a case in which it has turned the same weapon against its harsh taskmaster. In obsessional neurosis, as we know, the phenomena of reaction-formation predominate; but here [in hysteria] the ego succeeds only in keeping at a distance the material to which the sense of guilt refers.

V. 14. One may go further and venture the hypothesis that a great part of the sense of guilt must normally remain unconscious, because the origin of conscience is intimately connected with the Oedipus complex, which belongs to the unconscious. If anyone were inclined to put forward the paradoxical proposition that the normal man is not only far more immoral than he believes but also far more moral than he knows, psychoanalysis, on whose findings the first half of the assertion rests, would have no objection to raise against the second half.<sup>66

66</sup>This proposition is only apparently a paradox; it simply states that human nature has a far greater extent, both for good and for evil, than it thinks it has -i.e. than its ego is aware of through conscious perception.

V. 15. It was a surprise to find that an increase in this Ucs. sense of ‘guilt can turn people into criminals. But it is undoubtedly a fact. In many criminals, especially youthful ones, it is possible to detect a very powerful sense of guilt which existed before the crime, and is therefore not its result but its motive. It is as if it was a relief to be able to fasten this unconscious sense of guilt on to something real and immediate.<sup>67

67</sup>[A full discussion of this (together with some other references) will be found in Part III of Freud’s paper on ‘Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work’ (1916d).]

V. 16. In all these situations the super-ego displays its independence of the conscious ego and its intimate relations with the unconscious id. Having regard, now, to the importance we have ascribed to preconscious verbal residues in the ego [p.358 f.], the question arises whether it can be the case that the super-ego, in so far as it is Ucs., consists in such word-presentations and, if it does not, what else it consists in. Our tentative answer will be that it is as impossible for the super-ego as for the ego to disclaim its origin from things heard; for it is a part of the ego and remains accessible to consciousness by way of these word-presentations (concepts, abstractions). But the cathectic energy does not reach these contents of the super-ego from auditory perception (instruction or reading) but from sources in the id.

V. 17. The question which we put off answering [see p.393] runs as follows: How is it that the super-ego manifests itself essentially as a sense of guilt (or rather, as criticism—for the sense of guilt is the perception in the ego answering to this criticism) and moreover develops such extraordinary harshness and severity towards the ego? If we turn to melancholia first, we find that the excessively strong super-ego which has obtained a hold upon consciousness rages against the ego with merciless violence, as if it had taken possession of the whole of the sadism available in the person concerned. Following our view of sadism, we should say that the destructive component had entrenched itself in the super-ego and turned against the ego. What is now holding sway in the super-ego is, as it were, a pure culture of the death instinct, and in fact it often enough succeeds in driving the ego into death, if the latter does not fend off its tyrant in time by the change round into mania.

V. 18. The reproaches of conscience in certain forms of obsessional neurosis are as distressing and tormenting, but here the situation is less perspicuous. It is noteworthy that the obsessional neurotic, in contrast to the melancholic, never in fact takes the step of self-destruction; it is as though he were immune against the danger of suicide, and he is far better protected from it than the hysteric. We can see that what guarantees the safety of the ego is the fact that the object has been retained. In obsessional neurosis it has become possible, through a regression to the pregenital organization, for the love-impulses to transform themselves into impulses of aggression against the object. Here again the instinct of destruction has been set free and it seeks to destroy the object, or at least it appears to have that intention. These purposes have not been adopted by the ego and it struggles against them with reaction-formations and precautionary measures; they remain in the id. The super-ego, however, behaves as if the ego were responsible for them and shows at the same time by the seriousness with which it chastises these destructive intentions that they are no mere semblance evoked by regression but an actual substitution of hate for love. Helpless in both directions, the ego defends itself vainly, alike against the instigations of the murderous id and against the reproaches of the punishing conscience. It succeeds in holding in check at least the most brutal actions of both sides; the first outcome is interminable self-torment, and eventually there follows a systematic torturing of the object, in so far as it is within reach.

V. 19. The dangerous death instincts are dealt with in the individual in various ways: in part they are rendered harmless by being fused with erotic components, in part they are diverted towards the external world in the form of aggression, while to a large extent they undoubtedly continue their internal work unhindered. How is it then that in melancholia the super-ego can become a kind of gathering-place for the death instincts?

V. 20. From the point of view of instinctual control, of morality, it may be said of the id that it is totally non-moral, of the ego that it strives to be moral, and of the super-ego that it can be super-moral and then become as cruel as only the id can be. It is remarkable that the more a man checks his aggressiveness towards the exterior the more severe—that is aggressive—he becomes in his ego ideal. The ordinary view sees the situation the other way round: the standard set up by the ego ideal seems to be the motive for the suppression of aggressiveness. The fact remains, however, as we have stated it: the more a man controls his aggressiveness, the more intense becomes his ideal’s inclination to aggressiveness against his ego.⁶⁸ It is like a displacement, a turning round upon his own ego. But even ordinary normal morality has a harshly restraining, cruelly prohibiting quality. It is from this, indeed, that the conception arises of a higher being wh6 deals out punishment inexorably.

⁶⁸[Freud returned to this paradox in Section B of ‘Some Additional Notes on Dream Interpretation as a Whole’ (1925i), and also in ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’ (1924c), p. 425 below, and discussed it more fully in Chapter VII of Civilization and its Discontents (1930a).]

V. 21. I cannot go further in my consideration of these questions without introducing a fresh hypothesis. The super-ego arises, as we know, from an identification with the father taken as a model. Every such identification is in the nature of a desexualization or even of a sublimation. It now seems as though when a transformation of this kind takes place, an instinctual defusion occurs at the same time [p. 369]. After sublimation the erotic component no longer has the power to bind the whole of the destructiveness that was combined with it, and this is released in the form of an inclination to aggression and destruction. This defusion would be the source of the general character of harshness and cruelty exhibited by the ideal — its dictatorial ‘Thou shalt.’

V. 22. Let us again consider obsessional neurosis for a moment. The state of affairs is different here. The defusion of love into aggressiveness has not been effected by the work of the ego, but is the result of a regression which has come about in the id. But this process has extended beyond the id to the super-ego, which now increases its severity towards the innocent ego. It would seem, however, that in this case, no less than in that of melancholia, the ego, having gained control over the libido by means of identification, is punished for doing so by the super-ego through the instrumentality of the aggressiveness which was mixed with the libido.

V. 23. Bene ilişkin düşüncelerimiz açıklık kazanmaya başlarken, çeşitli ilişkileri de kendilerini durulukları içinde gösterirler. Şimdi beni gücü ve zayıflığı içinde görürüz. Sorumluluğu altına düşen önemli işlevler vardır, algı dizgesi ile ilişkisinin gücüyle ruhsal süreçlerin zamansal düzenini saptar ve onları olgusallık sınaması altına getirir.⁶⁰ Düşünce süreçlerinin araya girmesi yoluyla motor boşalımların ertelenmesini sağlar ve devinebilirliğe girişi denetler.⁶¹ Bu son denetleme gücü hiç kuşkusuz olgusal olmaktan çok biçimseldir; eylem ile ilişki içinde ben bir bakıma anayasal bir tekerk konumundadır ki, onayı olmaksızın hiçbir yasa çıkarılamaz, ama Parlamentonun bir önergesine karşı vetosunu bildirmeden önce kendisi uzun uzadıya düşünmek zorundadır. Dışardan kaynaklanan tüm yaşam deneyimlerinde ben kendini varsıllaştırır; ama O onun kendine altgüdümlü kılmaya çalıştığı ikinci dışsal dünyasıdır. O’dan libido çeker, ve O’nun nesne-yatırımlarını ben-şekillerine çevirir. Üst-benin yardımı yoluyla, henüz bize karanlık kalan bir yolda, geçmiş çağların O’da birikmiş deneyimlerini çekip çıkarır. [Bkz. yukarıda § II. 25.]

V. 23. Our ideas about the ego are beginning to clear, and its various relationships are gaining distinctness. We now see the ego in its strength and in its weaknesses. It is entrusted with important functions. By virtue of its relation to the perceptual system it gives mental processes an order in time and submits them to ‘reality-testing’.⁶⁹ By interposing the processes of thinking, it secures a postponement of motor discharges and controls the access to motility.⁷⁰ This last power is, to be sure, a question more of form than of fact; in the matter of action the ego’s position is like that of a constitutional monarch, without whose sanction no law can be passed but who hesitates long before imposing his veto on any measure put forward by Parliament. All the experiences of life that originate from without enrich the ego; the id, however, is its second external world, which it strives to bring into subjection to itself It withdraws libido from the id and transforms the object-cathexes of the id into ego-structures. With the aid of the super-ego, in a manner that is still obscure to us, it draws upon the experiences of past ages stored in the id [p. 378].

⁶⁹[Cf. ‘The Unconscious’ (1915e), p.193 above.]

⁷⁰[Cf. ‘Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning’ (191lb), p. 38 above, and ‘Negation’ (1925h), p. 440 below.]

V. 24. There are two paths by which the contents of the id can penetrate into the ego. The one is direct, the other leads by way of the ego ideal; which of these two paths they take may, for some mental activities, be of decisive importance. The ego develops from perceiving instincts to controlling them, from obeying instincts to inhibiting them. In this achievement a large share is taken by the ego ideal, which indeed is partly a reaction-formation against the instinctual processes of the id. Psychoanalysis is an instrument to enable the ego to achieve a progressive conquest of the id.

V. 25. From the other point of view, however, we see this same ego as a poor creature owing service to three masters and consequently menaced by three dangers: from the external world, from the libido of the id, and from the severity of the superego. Three kinds of anxiety correspond to these three dangers, since anxiety is the expression of a retreat from danger. As a frontier-creature, the ego tries to mediate between the world and the id, to make the id pliable to the world and, by means of its muscular activity, to make the world fall in with the wishes of the id. In point of fact it behaves like the physician during an analytic treatment: it offers itself, with the attention it pays to the real world, as a libidinal object to the id, and aims at attaching the id’s libido to itself. It is not only a helper to the id; it is also a submissive slave who courts his master’s love. Whenever possible, it tries to remain on good terms with the id; it clothes the id’s Ucs. commands with its Pcs. rationalizations; it pretends that the id is showing obedience to the admonitions of reality, even when in fact it is remaining obstinate and unyielding; it disguises the id’s conflicts with reality and, if possible, its conflicts with the superego too. In its position midway between the id and reality, it only too often yields to the temptation to become sycophantic, opportunist and lying, like a politician who sees the truth but wants to keep his place in popular favour.

V. 26. Towards the two classes of instincts the ego’s attitude is not impartial. Through its work of identification and sublimation it gives the death instincts in the id assistance in gaining control over the libido, but in so doing it runs the risk of becoming the object of the death instincts and of itself perishing. In order to be able to help in this way it has had itself to become filled with libido; it thus itself becomes the representative of Eros and thenceforward desires to live and to be loved.

V. 27. But since the ego’s work of sublimation results in a defusion of the instincts and a liberation of the aggressive instincts in the superego, its struggle against the libido exposes it to the danger of maltreatment and death. In suffering under the attacks of the super-ego or perhaps even succumbing to them, the ego is meeting with a fate like that of the protista which are destroyed by the products of decomposition that they themselves have created.⁷¹ From the economic point of view the morality that functions in the super-ego seems to be a similar product of decomposition.

⁷¹[Freud had discussed these animalculae in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 321 above. They would probably now be described as ‘protozoa’ rather than ‘protista’. ]

V. 28. Among the dependent relationships in which the ego stands, that to the superego is perhaps the most interesting.

V. 29. The ego is the actual seat of anxiety.⁷² Threatened by dangers from three directions, it develops the flight-reflex by withdrawing its own cathexis from the menacing perception or from the similarly regarded process in the id, and emitting it as anxiety. This primitive reaction is later replaced by the carrying-out of protective cathexes (the mechanism of the phobias). What it is that the ego fears from the external and from the libidinal danger cannot be specified; we know that the fear is of being overwhelmed or annihilated, but it cannot be grasped analytically.⁷³ The ego is simply obeying the warning of the pleasure principle. On the other hand, we can tell what is hidden behind the ego’s dread of the super-ego, the fear of conscience.⁷⁴ The superior being, which turned into the ego ideal, once threatened castration, and this dread of castration is probably the nucleus round which the subsequent fear of conscience has gathered; it is this dread that persists as the fear of conscience.

⁷²[What follows on the subject of anxiety must be read in connection with Freud’s revised views as stated in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926d), P. F. L., 10, 237 If., where most of the points raised here are further discussed.]

⁷³[The notion of the ego being ‘overwhelmed’ (of an ‘Überwältigung’) occurs very early in Freud’s writings. See, for instance, a mention of it in Part II of his first paper on ‘The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence’ (1894a). But it plays a prominent part in his discussion of the mechanism of the neuroses in Draft K of 1 January 1896 in the Fliess correspondence (Freud, 1950a). There is an evident Connection here with the ‘traumatic situation’ of Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926d), P. F. L., 10, 326-8. See also Essay III in Moses and Monotheism (1939a).]

⁷⁴[‘Gewissensangst.’ An Editor’s footnote on the use of this word will be found in Chapter VII of Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, P.F.L., 10, 284n. 1.]

V. 30. Kulağa etkileyici gelen o ‘Her endişe aslında ölüm endişesidir’ önermesinin pek bir anlamı yoktur, ya da ne olursa olsun aklanamaz.⁶⁶ Tersine, ölüm endişesini nesne endişesinden (gerçek endişeden) ve sinirceli libido-endişesinden ayırmak bana baştan sona doğru görünür. Bu ruhçözümleme için güç bir sorun yaratır, çünkü ölüm olumsuz içerikli soyut bir kavramdır ve ona karşılık düşen bilinçsiz bir terim bulunamaz. Ölüm endişesinin düzeneği ancak benin narsissistik libido-yatırımını çok büyük ölçüde salıvermesi, dolayısıyla kendisinden vazgeçmesi olabilir, tıpkı daha başka endişe durumlarında bir başka nesneden vazgeçmesi gibi. Kanımca ölüm endişesi ben ve üst-ben arasında yer alan birşeydir.

V. 30. The high-sounding phrase, ‘every fear is ultimately the fear of death’, has hardly any meaning, and at any rate cannot be justified.⁷⁵ It seems to me, on the contrary, perfectly correct to distinguish the fear of death from dread of an object (realistic anxiety) and from neurotic libidinal anxiety. It presents a difficult problem to psychoanalysis, for death is an abstract concept with a negative content for which no unconscious correlative can be found. It would seem that the mechanism of the fear of death can only be that the ego relinquishes its narcissistic libidinal cathexis in a very large measure—that is, that it gives up itself, just as it gives up some external object in other cases in which it feels anxiety. I believe that the fear of death is something that occurs between the ego and the super-ego.

⁷⁶[Cf. Stekel (1908, 5).]

V. 31. We know that the fear of death makes its appearance under two conditions (which, moreover, are entirely analogous to situations in which other kinds of anxiety develop), namely, as a reaction to an external danger and as an internal process, as for instance in melancholia. Once again a neurotic manifestation may help us to understand a normal one.

V. 32. The fear of death in melancholia only admits of one explanation: that the ego gives itself up because it feels itself hated and persecuted by the super-ego, instead of loved. To the ego, therefore, living means the same as being loved—being loved by the super-ego, which here again appears as the representative of the id. The super-ego fulfils the same function of protecting and saving that was fulfilled in earlier days by the father and later by Providence or Destiny. But, when the ego finds itself in an excessive real danger which it believes itself unable to overcome by its own strength, it is bound to draw the same conclusion. It sees itself deserted by all protecting forces and lets itself die. Here, moreover, is once again the same situation as that which underlay the first great anxiety-state of birth⁷⁷ and the infantile anxiety of longing—the anxiety due to separation from the protecting mother.⁷⁸

⁷⁷[Some discussion of the appearance of this notion here will be found in the Editor’s Introduction to Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, P.F.L., 10, 234-6.]

⁷⁸[This foreshadows the ‘separation anxiety’ discussed in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926d), P.F.L., 10, 309.]

V. 34. The id, to which we finally come back, has no means of showing the ego either love or hate. It cannot say what it wants; it has achieved no unified will. Eros and the death instinct struggle within it; we have seen with what weapons the one group of instincts defends itself against the other. It would be possible to picture the id as under the domination of the mute but powerful death instincts, which desire to be at peace and (prompted by the pleasure principle) to put Eros, the mischief-maker, to rest; but perhaps that might be to undervalue the part played by Eros.