Lecture XXV The Angst [Die Angst] : 1917 : Sigmund Freud

Note : The title has been mistranslated as ‘Anxiety’ by James Strachey.

Published

Lecture XXV Anxiety [Die Angst] : 1917 : Part III. General theory of the neuroses (1917) of Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis (1916-17), SE XVI

Download, Die Angst – published in German & James Strachey’s translation & notes, Vol 1, Penguin Freud Library (PFL), at www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Freud (1917)

Citations

– 21^st November 1956 Seminar IV, See Seminar IV The Relation from Object (La relation d’objet) & Freudian Structures (1956-1957) : from 21^st November 1956 : Jacques Lacan on this site /4 Jacques Lacan

P8 of EC Collectives’ translation : “… If, since 1926, [25] on the contrary, the focus is of anguish [26] [d’angoisse] and the interaction of the organism and the environment, this is also because the foundations of society have been shaken, and the anguish [l’angoisse] of a changing world is experienced daily, so that individuals see themselves differently. In this period, even physics struggles to find its footing, and relativism, uncertainty, probabilism seem to deprive objective thought of its self-confidence”.[27] [Jacques Lacan is quoting Maurice Bénassy here] [25] A reference to Inhibitions, Symptoms & Anguish – Angst [Anxiety] : 1926d : Sigmund Freud, SE XX p75-175: www.Freud2Lacan.com : In German ‘Hemmung, Symptom und Angst’

Note on Translation : July 2022 : Julia Evans

German to French, then English

Angst is translated by Jacques Lacan, who read Sigmund Freud’s texts in the original German, as ‘l’angoisse’. This becomes in translation (Alan Sheridan, Bruce Fink, Adrian Price, and so on) into English ‘anxiety’. In the EC Collectives’ translation of Seminar IV, l’angoisse [Angst] is translated as ‘anguish’ to distinguish it from ‘anxiété’ translated as ‘anxiety’.

German to English

Sigmund Freud uses the term ‘angst’ as in ‘Hemmung, Symptom und Angst : 1926’ (See this site /3 Sigmund Freud or Index of Freud’s texts or www.Freud2Lacan.com ). This has been translated by James Strachey as ‘anxiety’. This is a widely used, mistranslation and ‘anguish’ or ‘angst’ are nearer. Wherever this is spotted, Angst will be substituted for Anxiety as a translation.

[26] ‘angoisse’ is translated as ‘anguish’ to distinguish it from ‘anxiété’ translated as ‘anxiety’.

A reflection on this distinction from Lecture XXV – Anxiety (1917) : in Part III – General Theory of the Neuroses of Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis: 1915-1917 (Published 1916-1917) : Sigmund Freud : SE XVI :

P443 of PFL, I shall avoid going more closely into the question of whether our linguistic usage means the same thing or something clearly different by ‘Angst’ [translated by James Strachey as Anxiety], ‘Furcht [fear’ and ‘Schrek [fright]. I will only say that I think ‘Angst’ relates to the state and disregards the object, while ‘Furcht’ draws attention precisely to the object. It seems that ‘Schrek’, on the other hand, does have a special sense; it lays emphasis, that is, on the effect produced by a danger which is not met by any preparedness for Angst [Angstbereitschaft]. We might say, therefore, that a person protects himself from fright by Angst[ »Angst«]. A certain ambiguity and indefiniteness in the use of the word ‘angst’ will not have escaped you. By ‘angst’ we usually understand the subjective state into which we are put by perceiving the ‘generation of angst’ [»Angstentwicklung«] and we call this an affect, …

[27] p773-774 of ‘Evolution de la Psychanalyse’ : 1956 : Maurice Bénassy [Published La psychanalyse d’aujourd’hui (1956). See https://www.LacanianWorks.org /5 Other Authors A-Z (Bénassy) for full quote.

***

-Notes on 21^st November 1956 Seminar IV : 28^th February 2017 : Julia Evans. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Evans or Index of Julia Evans’ texts)

EC Collective’s translation p8, 21^st November 1957, ‘on the contrary, the focus is of anguish [26] [d’angoisse]’

Note (28^th February 2017)

The translation of ‘angoisse’.

According to the on-line translation site www.linguee.fr, anxiety can translate to anxiété or rarer, inquiétude or angoisse or peur or crainte .

However, Angoisse is translated as Anguish, or rarer, Anxiety, Angst, Anguished

Therefore whenever angoisse (French)/angst (German) is translated as anxiety, the corrected translation of anguish/angst is used.

Quote from Lecture XXV The Angst 1917 [p443-444 PFL]

The more the generation of anxiety is limited to a mere abortive beginning – to a signal [p443 1] – the more will the preparedness for anxiety transform itself without disturbance into action and the more expedient will be the shape taken by the whole course of events. Accordingly, the preparedness for anxiety seems to me to be the expedient element in what we call anxiety, and the generation of anxiety the inexpedient one.

I shall avoid going more closely into the question of whether our linguistic usage means the same thing or something clearly different by ‘Angst [anxiety]’, ‘Furcht [fear]’ and ‘Schreck [fright]’. I will only say that I think ‘Angst’ relates to the state and disregards the object, while ‘Furcht’ draws attention precisely to the object. It seems that ‘Schreck’, on the other hand, does have a special sense; it lays emphasis, that is, on the effect produced by a danger which is not met by any preparedness for anxiety [welche nicht von einer Angstbereitschaft empfangen wird]. We might say, therefore, that a person protects himself from fright by angst (anxiety) [die Angst vor dem Schreck].

A certain ambiguity and indefiniteness in the use of the word ‘Angst’ will not have escaped you. By ‘angst (anxiety)’ we usually understand the subjective state into which we are put by perceiving the ‘generation of angst (anxiety) [»Angstentwicklung«]’ and we call this an affect. And what is an affect in the dynamic sense? It is in any case something highly composite. An affect includes in the first place particular motor innervations or discharges and secondly certain feelings; the latter are of two kinds – perceptions of the motor actions that have occurred and the direct feelings of pleasure and unpleasure which, as we say, give the affect its keynote. But I do not think that with this enumeration we have arrived at the essence of an affect. We seem to see deeper in the case of some affects and to recognize that the core which holds the combination we have described together is the repetition of some particular significant experience. This experience could only be a very early impression of a very general nature, placed in the prehistory not of the individual but of the species. To make myself more intelligible – an affective state would be constructed in the same way as a hysterical attack; and, like it, would be the precipitate of a reminiscence. A hysterical attack may thus be likened to a freshly constructed individual affect, and a normal affect to the expression of a general hysteria which has become a heritage. [p444 1]

Do not suppose that the things I have said to you here about affects are the recognized stock-in-trade of normal psychology. They are on the contrary views that have grown up on the soil of psycho-analysis and are native only to it. What you may gather about affects from psychology – the James-Lange theory, for example – is quite beyond understanding or discussion to us psycho-analysts. But we do not regard our knowledge about affects as very assured either; it is a first attempt at finding our bearings in this obscure region. I will proceed, however. We believe that in the case of the affect of angst (anxiety) [Angstaffekt] we know what the early impression is which it repeats. We believe that it is in the act of birth that there comes about the combination of unpleasurable feelings, impulses of discharge and bodily sensations which has become the prototype of the effects of a mortal danger and has ever since been repeated by us as the state of angst (anxiety) [Angstzustand]. The immense increase of stimulation owing to the interruption of the renovation of the blood (internal respiration) was at the time the cause of the experience of angst (anxiety) [Angsterlebnisses]; the first angst (anxiety) was thus a toxic one. The name ‘Angst – ‘augustiae’, ‘Enge’¹ [p445 1] – emphasizes the characteristic of restriction in breathing which was then present as a consequence of the real situation and is now almost invariably reinstated in the affect. We shall also recognize it as highly relevant that this first state of angst (anxiety) [Angstzustand] arose out of separation from the mother. It is, of course, our conviction that the disposition to repeat the first state of angst (anxiety) [Angstzustandes] has been so thoroughly incorporated into the organism through a countless series of generations that a single individual cannot escape the affect of angst (anxiety) [Angstaffekt] even if, like the legendary Macduff, he ‘was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped’ [p445 2] and has therefore not himself experienced the act of birth. We cannot say what has become the prototype of the state of angst (anxiety) [das Vorbild des Angstzustandes] in the case of creatures other than mammals. And in the same way we do not know either what complex of feelings is in such creatures the equivalent to our angst (anxiety).

P443 Footnote 1, James Strachey states This notion of anxiety serving as a ‘signal’ (which appears again below on p453 PFL) was to play a central part in Freud’s later accounts of anxiety, in ‘Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety’ (1926d) and in the New Introductory Lectures (1933a) p117f.

P444 Footnote 1, James Strachey states This account of hysterical attacks had been suggested by Freud in a paper on this subject many years earlier (1909a [Dora]). The view of affects in general which is expressed here may possibly be based on Darwin’s explanation of them as relics of actions which originally had a meaning (Darwin, 1872).

P445 Footnote 1, James Strachey states These Latin and German words, meaning ‘narrow place’, ‘straits’, are from the same root as ‘Angst’ (and ‘anxiety’).

P445 Footnote 2, James Strachey states Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene7

***

-Notes on 21^st November 1956 Seminar IV : 28^th February 2017 : Julia Evans. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Evans or Index of Julia Evans’ texts)

EC collectives’ translation, 21^st November 1957, p11:

Freud and all those who have studied phobia, with him and after him, cannot fail to show that there is no direct relationship [rapport] to the “alleged fear” [prétendue peur][35] which would stain this object with its fundamental mark, constituting it as such, as a primitive object. On the contrary, there is a considerable distance from the fear, on which it (object) acts [dont il s’agit] by itself, and which within certain cases may well be, and which in other cases may well also not be, quite a primitive fear [peur], on which it, itself, (the object) acts [dont il s’agit] and the object which, by relationship [rapport] to it (fear), is very essentially constituted in order to keep it (fear) at a distance, to enclose the subject within a certain circle, within a certain stronghold in the interior of which he shelters himself[36] from these fears. The object is essentially the here and now of an alarm signal[37].

[Footnote 35] “alleged fear” may refer to the following from Sigmund Freud :

Quote from Lecture XXV The Angst 1917 Sigmund Freud, P446 PFL, James Strachey’s translation,

If we now pass over to consider neurotic angst (anxiety) [neurotischen Angst], what fresh forms and situations are manifested by angst (anxiety) [die Angst bei den Nervösen]? There is much to be described here. In the first place we find a general apprehensiveness [eine allgemeine Ängstlichkeit], a kind of freely floating angst (anxiety) [frei flottierende Angst] which is ready to attach itself to any idea that is in any way suitable, which influences judgement, selects what is to be expected, and lies in wait for any opportunity that will allow it to justify itself. We call this state ‘expectant angst (anxiety)’ or ‘angst (anxious) expectation’ [»Erwartungsangst« oder »ängstliche Erwartung«]. People who are tormented by this kind of angst (anxiety) [die von dieser Art Angst] always foresee the most frightful of all possibilities, interpret every chance event as a premonition of evil and exploit every uncertainty in a bad sense. A tendency to an expectation of evil of this sort is to be found as a character trait in many people whom one cannot otherwise regard as sick; one calls them over-anxious or pessimistic. A striking amount of expectant angst (anxiety) [Maß von Erwartungsangst gehört], however, forms a regular feature of a nervous disorder [nervösen Affektion] to which I have given the name of ‘angst (anxiety) neurosis [» Angstneurose«]’ and which I include among the ‘actual’ neuroses. [p446 1]

A second form of angst (anxiety) [zweite Form der Angst], in contrast to the ones I have just described, is bound psychically [p446 2] and attached particular objects or situations.

P446 Footnote 1, James Strachey states, Cf. Freud’s original account of the Angst (Anxiety) Neurosis (1895b)

P446 Footnote 2, James Strachey states, Instead of being freely floating.

Further quote, P448 PFL, Lecture XXV Anxiety (1917),

The two forms of angst (anxiety) that I have just described – the freely floating expectant anxiety and the sort which is bound to phobias – are independent of each other. One is not a higher stage, as it were, of the other; and they only appear simultaneously in exceptional cases and, so to speak, accidentally. The most powerful general apprehensiveness need not be expressed in phobias; …

[36] p443 PFL, We might say, therefore, that a person protects himself from fright by angst (anxiety) [die Angst vor dem Schreck]. Lecture XXV Anxiety (1917) SE XVI Sigmund Freud.[37] Quote from Lecture XXV The Angst 1917 Sigmund Freud

P442-443 PFL.Thus one feels tempted to assert that the generation of angst (anxiety) is never an expedient thing. It may perhaps help us to see more clearly if we dissect the situation of angst (anxiety) more carefully. The first thing about it is preparedness for the danger, which manifests itself in increased sensory attention and motor tension. This expectant preparedness can be unhesitatingly recognized as an advantage; indeed, its absence may be made responsible for serious consequences. From it there then proceeds on the one hand motor action – flight in the first instance and at a higher level active defence – and on the other hand what we feel as a state of angst (anxiety). The more the generation of anxiety is limited to a mere abortive beginning – to a signal – the more will the preparedness for anxiety transform itself without disturbance into action and the more expedient will be the shape taken by the whole course of events. Accordingly, the preparedness for anxiety seems to me to be the expedient element in what we call angst (anxiety), and the generation of angst (anxiety) the inexpedient one. [See quote from p443-444 above for the continuation]

GWXXV see www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Freud

Man fühlt sich also versucht zu behaupten, daß die Angstentwicklung niemals etwas Zweckmäßiges ist. Vielleicht verhilft es zu besserer Einsicht, wenn man sich die Angstsituation sorgfältiger zerlegt. Das erste an ihr ist die Bereitschaft auf die Gefahr, die sich in gesteigerter sensorischer Aufmerksamkeit und motorischer Spannung äußert. Diese Erwartungsbereitschaft ist unbedenklich als vorteilhaft anzuerkennen, ja ihr Wegfall mag für ernste Folgen verantwortlich gemacht werden. Aus ihr geht nun einerseits die motorische Aktion hervor, zunächst Flucht, auf einer höheren Stufe tätige Abwehr, anderseits das, was wir als den Angstzustand empfinden. Je mehr sich die Angstentwicklung auf einen bloßen Ansatz, auf ein Signal einschränkt, desto ungestörter vollzieht sich die Umsetzung der Angstbereitschaft in Aktion, desto zweckmäßiger gestaltet sich der ganze Ablauf. Die Angstbereitschaft scheint mir also das Zweckmäßige, die Angstentwicklung das Zweckwidrige an dem, was wir Angst heißen, zu sein.

An internet translation of the last sentence, which will be further checked.

The willingness to fear (angst) seems to me to be the expedient thing, the development of fear (angst) is the inexpedient thing about it, what we call angst to be.

***

–The function of the anguish (NOT anxiety) : 13^th July 2006 (Rome) : François Leguil. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Leguil or Index of Other Authors’ texts

Quote from Leguil : ‘. As early as 1916, Freud showed that anguish is not an abnormal or immoderate fear, because it logically precedes it.’

Quotes from Sigmund Freud’s Lecture XXV – The Angst. See p443 of PFL above : P443 of PFL, I shall avoid going more closely into the question of whether our linguistic usage means the same thing or something clearly different by ‘Angst [Anguish translated by James Strachey as Anxiety], ‘Furcht [fear’ and ‘Schrek [fright]. I will only say that I think ‘Angst’ relates to the state and disregards the object, while ‘Furcht’ draws attention precisely to the object. … A certain ambiguity and indefiniteness in the use of the word ‘Angst’ will not have escaped you. By ‘angst (anxiety)’ we usually understand the subjective state into which we are put by perceiving the ‘generation of angst (anxiety) [»Angstentwicklung«]’ and we call this an affect. … See quote above from p443 for more

P446 PFL above for fuller quote, If we now pass over to consider neurotic angst (anxiety) [neurotischen Angst], what fresh forms and situations are manifested by angst (anxiety) [die Angst bei den Nervösen]?

***

–Seminar X From the Anguish (De l’angoisse) (1962-1963) : from 14th November 1962 : Jacques Lacan, see this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19621114)

In the notes on translating the title from Seminar X Anxiety, to Seminar X From Anguish, the following is cited:

P440 PFL Footnotes 1, 2, & 3

LECTURE XXV THE ANGST (ANXIETY)[1] [25. Vorlesung. Die Angst]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, – What I said to you in my last lecture about the general neurotic state will no doubt have struck you as the most incomplete and inadequate of all my pronouncements. I know that is true, and nothing will have surprised you more, I expect, than that there was nothing in it about the angst [die angst](anxiety)[2], of which most neurotics complain, which they themselves describe as their worst suffering and which does in fact attain enormous intensity in them and may result in their adopting the craziest measures.

…

But I think the question has never been seriously enough raised of why neurotics in particular suffer from angst [Angst](anxiety) so much more and so much more strongly than other people. Perhaps it has been regarded as something self-evident: the words ‘nervös’ and ‘ängstlich’ are commonly used interchangeably, as though they meant the same thing. But we have no right to do so: there are ‘ängstlich’[3] people who are otherwise not at all ‘nervös’ and, moreover, ‘nervös’ people who suffer from many symptoms, among which a tendency to ‘Angst’ is not included.

Footnote [1] p440 PFL, James Strachey writes [Freud’s first major discussion of this subject was in a paper on Anxiety Neurosis (1895b) [Grounds for Detaching a Particular Syndrome from Neurasthenia under the Description “Angst (Anxiety) Neurosis’ : June 1894 [1895b] : Sigmund Freud, SE III, see this site /4 Sigmund Freud (18940601)] and his last Inhibitions, Symptoms & Angst (Anxiety) (1926d) [See this site /4 Sigmund Freud (19260101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts]. Although, as he indicates in his Preface (Summer 1932) (p35 f. PFL or * below), the present lecture was his most complete treatment of the problem of anxiety at the time of its delivery, his views were later revised in some important respects. For a statement of his final position, see Lecture 32 [Lecture XXXII – Angst and Life Drives (Anxiety and Instinctual Life) : June 1932 [1933] : Sigmund Freud, see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19320630)] of his New Introductory Lectures (1933a). [See New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis : May to August 1932 (1933) : Sigmund Freud at this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19320501)]

* Preface to Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-1917) : Spring 1917 : Sigmund Freud

… This volume is a faithful reproduction of the lectures which I delivered [at the University] during the two Winter Terms 1915-16 and 1916-17 before an audience of doctors and laymen of both sexes.

Any peculiarities of this book which may strike its readers are accounted for by the conditions in which it originated. It was not possible in my presentation to preserve the unruffled calm of a scientific treatise. On the contrary, the lecturer had to make it his business to prevent his audience’s attention from lapsing during a session lasting for almost two hours. The necessities of the moment often made it impossible to avoid repetitions in treating some particular subject – it might emerge once, for instance, in connection with dream-interpretation and then again later on in connection with the problems of the neuroses. As a result, too, of the way in which the material was arranged, some important topics (the unconscious, for instance) could not be exhaustively treated at a single point, but had to be taken up repeatedly and then dropped again until a fresh opportunity arose for adding some further information about it.

Those who are familiar with psychoanalytic literature will find little in this ‘Introduction” that could not have been known to them already from other much more detailed publications. Nevertheless, the need for rounding-off and summarizing the subject-matter has compelled the author at certain points (the aetiology of angst (anxiety) and hysterical phantasies) to bring forward material that he has hitherto held back.

FREUD

VIENNA, Spring 1917

Footnote [2] p440 PFL, James Strachey states, ‘Angst’ Though ‘anxiety’, in a sense quite differently from the colloquial one, is the technical transation, we often find it necessary to render it by such words as ‘fear’, being ‘frightened’ or ‘afraid’, and so on.

Footnote [3] p440 PFL, James Strachey states, These words are by no means equivalent to the colloquial English ‘nervous’ and ‘anxious’. ‘Nervös’ might be rendered by ‘nervy’ or ‘jumpy’ and ‘ängstlich’ by ‘nervous’ in its colloquial sense. ‘Anxious’ in its ordinary usage is more like the German ‘bekümmert’ or ‘besorgt’.

***

–13^th March 1957 Seminar IV, See Seminar IV The Relation from Object (La relation d’objet) & Freudian Structures (1956-1957) : from 21st November 1956 : Jacques Lacan on this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19561121)

p12 Footnote 20, Little Hans: 1909, SE X p14 … See this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19090101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)
RELATED TEXTS
Essay III The Transformation of Puberty, Infantile Anxiety SEVII p224
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality 1905 SE VII, see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19050101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)
The truth is merely that children who are inclined to be timid are affected by stories which would make no impression whatever upon others, and it is only children with a sexual instinct that is excessive or has developed prematurely or has become vociferous owing to too much petting who are inclined to be timid. In this respect a child, by turning his libido into anxiety (probably angst) when he cannot satisfy it, behaves in his anxiety (probably angst) like a child: he begins to be frightened when he is alone, that is to say when he is away from someone of whose love he had felt secure, and he seeks to assuage this feat by the most childish measures. [Footnote 1] [1] For this explanation of the origin of infantile anxiety I have to thank a three-year-old boy whom I once heard calling out of a dark room: ‘Auntie, speak to me! I’m frightened because it’s so dark.’ His aunt answered him: ‘What good would that do? You can’t see me.’ ‘That doesn’t matter,’ replied the child, ‘if anyone speaks, it gets light.’ Thus what he was afraid of was not the dark, but the absence of someone he loved; and he could feel sure of being soothed as soon as he had evidence of that person’s presence. [Sigmund Freud added 1920:] One of the most important results of psychoanalytic research is this discovery that neurotic anxiety [die neurotische Angst] arises out of libido, that it is the product of a transformation of it, and that it is thus related to it in the same kind of way as vinegar is to wine. A further discussion of this problem will be found in my ‘Introductory Lecture on Psycho-Analysis (1916-17) Lecture XXV though even there, it must be confessed, the question is not finally cleared up.

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–Further Remarks about Schreber’s Hallucinations : July 1951 [1952] (Amsterdam) : Maurits Katan. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Katan)

p431 of Katan’s text : We see that the schizophrenic hallucination and the neurotic phobia have one trait in common : both are based on an anticipation of danger. The phobic anxiety is formed by the ego and, as described by Freud, serves the purpose of inhibiting further development in the direction of the danger. :

Note (JE) there is no reference given for this wild assertion!

May be Lecture XXV Angst : 1917, P442-443 PFL. (See above quote) Thus one feels tempted to assert that the generation of angst (anxiety) is never an expedient thing. It may perhaps help us to see more clearly if we dissect the situation of angst (anxiety) more carefully. The first thing about it is preparedness for the danger, which manifests itself in increased sensory attention and motor tension. This expectant preparedness can be unhesitatingly recognized as an advantage; indeed, its absence may be made responsible for serious consequences. … Accordingly, the preparedness for anxiety seems to me to be the expedient element in what we call angst (anxiety), and the generation of angst (anxiety) the inexpedient one.

P443 PFL (see above for fuller quote) I will only say that I think ‘Angst’ relates to the state and disregards the object, while ‘Furcht’ draws attention precisely to the object. It seems that ‘Schrek’, on the other hand, does have a special sense; it lays emphasis, that is, on the effect produced by a danger which is not met by any preparedness for Angst [welche nicht von einer Angstbereitschaft empfangen wird]. We might say, therefore, that a person protects himself from fright by angst (anxiety) [die Angst vor dem Schreck].

***

– Infant Analysis : 1923 : Melanie Klein, see this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Klein)

Quote from Klein p89: We know that anxiety is one of the primary affects. (from p342 of Standard Edition) ‘I said that conversion into anxiety, or better, discharge in the form of anxiety, was the immediate fate of libido which encounters repression’.

[From Lecture 25 Anxiety : p459 of Penguin Freud Library – pfl, Volume 1. SE XVI : I have said that transformation into angst (anxiety) – it would be better to say discharge in the form of angst (anxiety) – is the immediate vicissitude of libido which is subjected to repression. (Ich sagte, die Verwandlung in Angst, besser: die Abfuhr in der Form der Angst, sei das nächste Schicksal der von der Verdrängung betroffenen Libido.)]

p89 cont. In thus reacting with anxiety the ego repeats that affect which at birth became the prototype of all anxiety and employs it as (from p337) ‘the general current coin for which all the affects are exchanged, or can be exchanged.’

[From Lecture 25 Anxiety : p452 of Penguin Freud Library, Volume 1 – Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis : Angst (Anxiety) is therefore the universally current coinage for which any affective impulse is or can be exchanged if the ideational content attached to it is subjected to repression. (In a footnote James Strachey references a discussion beginning about the middle of Freud’s paper on ‘Repression’: 1915d. Further details at /5 Other Authors A-Z (Klein 19230101). (Die Angst ist also die allgemein gangbare Münze, gegen welche alle Affektregungen eingetauscht werden oder werden können, wenn der dazugehörige Vorstellungsinhalt der Verdrängung unterlegen ist.)

p89 cont. If the repression is unsuccessful the result is the formation of symptoms. (From p342 of Collected Papers) ‘In the neuroses, processes take place which are intended to prevent the development of anxiety, and succeed in so doing by various means.’

[From Lecture 25 Anxiety : p459 of Penguin Freud Library, Volume 1. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis or Lecture XXV Anxiety : 1917 : Sigmund Freud, SE XVI : Download, James Strachey’s translation & notes, PFL, at www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Freud (1917) : [p2699] In the neuroses processes are in action which endeavour to bind this generating of angst (anxiety) and which even succeed in doing so in various ways. (Es sind bei den Neurosen Prozesse im Gange, welche sich bemühen, diese Angstentwicklung zu binden, und denen dies auch auf verschiedenen Wegen gelingt.) For fuller quote see /5 Other Authors A-Z (Klein 19230101)

Julia Evans2024-09-26T14:26:13+01:00