Shiva Kumar Srinivasan has a Ph.D. in English Literature and Psychoanalysis from the University of Wales at Cardiff (1996).

1. 1
THEORY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
ON SIGMUND FREUD’S ‘OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS’
Sigmund Freud (1940). ‘An Outline of Psychoanalysis,’ Historical and Expository
Works on Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Albert Dickson
(London: Penguin Books), Vol. 15, Penguin Freud Library, pp. 369-443.
INTRODUCTION
Though this is but one of the many expository texts written by Sigmund Freud, it is
important, as the editors of this volume point out, because it was his last text on
psychoanalysis. The manuscript version of this text was begun in 1938. It is not clear
whether Freud considered this to be a complete text; or he would have expanded it if
he had lived longer. Nonetheless, the importance of this text is that it gives him a
chance to summarize a lot of what he had learnt about psychoanalysis during a long
clinical career at Vienna. This is all the more important because many of the early
texts on psychoanalysis were like works in progress. Here however Freud is able to
state his theoretical conclusions more forcefully than in any of his previous texts.
Freud was aware of this; for as he puts it, ‘the aim of this brief work is to bring
together the tenets of psychoanalysis and to state them…in the most concise form
and in the most unequivocal terms.’ It would therefore not be a bad idea if the reader
were to begin his study of psychoanalysis by first reading this text; and then work
his way back through the Freudian canon to the earlier texts. There are three parts
and nine chapters in this text. The first part describes the structure of the mind; the
second part explains the practice of analysis; and the third part is about the
‘theoretical yield’ of analysis. These parts can be read separately or as a whole. The
topics covered under the first part include the structure of the psychic apparatus;
instincts and the sexual function in human beings; the qualities of the psyche; and an
illustration of dream interpretation. The topics covered under the second part
describe the actual techniques involved in doing clinical work in psychoanalysis
along with an example; the third part explains the relationship between the psyche
and the inner and outer worlds in which the human subject finds himself.

2. 2
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PSYCHE
The first part is entitled ‘the mind and its workings.’ Here, Freud is mainly
concerned with showing that the psyche has a structure; it can be compared to an
‘apparatus.’ The notion of an apparatus is not meant to be taken in the literal sense;
in other words, it is not like an organ that can be pointed to in the body or the brain.
It is more akin to a scientific diagram or device that will help the reader to visualize
the psyche. Once the psyche is compared to an apparatus, it will become possible for
Freud to not only describe its workings but to also delineate its various parts. In
other words, the notion of an apparatus makes it possible to invoke a concrete image
of the psyche as though it were a telescope or a microscope whose structure and
function can be explained to the next generation of scientists. Freud points out that
such a theoretical conception has not been consistently developed before - that is
why he begins his text with a description of ‘the psychical apparatus.’ Freud then
goes on to situate the different parts of the psyche in this ‘structural’ model; they
include ‘the id, the ego, and the super-ego.’ The id is the oldest portion of the psyche;
the remaining two are carved out of the id. This structural model can also be
mapped approximately on to the descriptive model of the unconscious, the pre-
conscious, and consciousness. The main difficulty in understanding the structure
and function of the psychic apparatus for newcomers is that there are three models
altogether (they are ‘the structural, the descriptive, and the topographical.)’1 It is
important to be able to relate the different aspects of the psyche by moving deftly
between these three models and understand the relationship between the structure
of the unconscious and the function of repression; the reader must also be careful not
to conflate these two categories. The repressed is the ‘prototype of the unconscious’
but not the unconscious itself.2 In other words, the reader should be able to situate
what Freud is saying about the workings of the mind by relating it to the structural,
the descriptive, and the topographical aspects of the psychical apparatus. It does not
make much sense to talk about the mind in itself without situating it in relation to
each of these three models depending on what aspect of the mind is really at stake
(in any of these theoretical descriptions). Freud’s main task is to show how the ego
1 For a history of the term ‘structure’ in the human sciences and psychoanalysis, see Roy
Boyne (1996). ‘Structuralism,’ in The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, edited by Bryan S.
Turner (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 194-220. See also Dylan Evans (1997). ‘Structure,’ An
Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge), pp. 192-195.
2 See Sigmund Freud (1915, 1991). ‘Repression,’ On Metapsychology: The Theory of
Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards (London: Penguin
Books), Vol. 11, Penguin Freud Library, pp. 139-158. See also Michael S. Roth (1997).
‘Repression,’ Psychoanalysis as History: Negation and Freedom in Freud (Calcutta: Oxford
University Press), pp. 52-71.

3. 3
must manage both the id and the super-ego within the internal world of the psyche
and then relate successfully to the external world as well. The advent of the super-
ego in humans relates to the long period of dependence in which children live. This
follows from the fact that in the human species (unlike animals) children are born
with a much shorter gestation period. 3 The super-ego is, simply put, the parental
norms that have been internalized by children when they are growing up. This
model of the psychical apparatus is important for Freud because it will go on to
embody the relentless conflict between the different psychic agencies that generates
a psychoneurosis.4 As Freud was fond of putting it, neuroses are basically ‘disorders
of the ego.’ In order to understand how these neuroses come about in the life of the
patient, it is important to model the conflict between the agencies that constitute the
internal structure of the psychical apparatus; that is why Freud begins his outline of
psychoanalysis with a description of the psychical apparatus.5 Everything else that
he shares with his readers will have to be thought-through with this psychical
apparatus in mind.
THE THEORY OF THE INSTINCTS
Freud then goes on to describe his theory of the instincts and ‘the sexual function.’
He starts with a definition of the term ‘instincts.’ The instincts constitute the ‘somatic
demands upon the mind’ that are made by the body. The presence of the instincts is
experienced by the subject as a form of psychic tension. The Freudian model of the
psyche is dualistic. It assumes that the main conflicts in the mind stems from the life
and death instincts; or from desire and the defences that constitute the repressive
function of the ego. This model of the psyche also has a metaphysical dimension that
3 The Lacanian ‘mirror stage’ is also related to the premature birth of the human species; this
accentuates the gap that the infant experiences before the mirror. The image of the infant in
the mirror appears more complete compared to his own lack of motor co-ordination; this
sense of wholeness in the mirror image activates an ‘anticipatory structure’ in which the
infant will henceforth seek his sense of being. See Jacques Lacan (1949, 1977, 1992). ‘The
Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic
Experience,’ Écrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller
(London: Routledge/Tavistock), pp. 1-7.
4 See Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (1973, 1988). ‘Psychical Apparatus,’ The
Language of Psychoanalysis, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, introduction by Daniel
Lagache (London: Karnac Books), pp. 358-359.
5 See also Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (1973, 1988). ‘Psychical Conflict,’ The
Language of Psychoanalysis translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, introduction by Daniel
Lagache (London: Karnac Books), pp. 359-362.

4. 4
is reflected in Freudian meta-psychology.6 In other words, human beings cannot
directly express their instincts. The expression of instincts is mediated by the cultural
norms that constitute the symbolic. That is why the psychology of humans is not
reducible to those of animals. It is therefore important to remember that the term
‘instinct’ is used differently in biology compared to psychoanalysis. Analysts like
Bruno Bettelheim and Jacques Lacan have argued that the term ‘instinct’ should
have been translated as ‘drive’ in the Freudian doctrine.7 The main reason that the
Freudian model of instincts, the sexual function, and the psychical apparatus has
been subject to so much misunderstanding is because of mistranslations in the
original Strachey edition of Freud. In other words, the point in contention here is
that in human beings, sexuality is necessarily mediated by the signifier. This idea has
important implications for human sexual behaviour and the individual model of
development. Or, to put it another way, in human beings the sexual drive is not as
unified as it is thought to be in animals. The sexual drive can be deconstructed, as
Lacan argues, into its component drives. That is why there is a higher level of
perversion in human sexuality than would be warranted by the simple demands of
sexual reproduction.8 The opposition between the life and death instincts, as it were,
gives Freud a chance to differentiate between forces that further ‘the preservation of
the species’ and those which seek to return to inanimate nature. Freud, for instance,
is preoccupied with the amount of force that is embodied in an instinct; it should be
neither too much nor too little, but just enough to further the preservation of the
species.
6 This theme is explored in Richard Boothby (2001). Freud as Philosopher:Metapsychology after
Lacan (New York: Routledge).
7 Bruno Bettelheim’s critique of the James Strachey translation of Sigmund Freud can be
found in Freud and Man’s Soul (London: Penguin Books, 1991), especially, pp. 103-112.
Readers may also want to look up the essays in the volume edited by Darius Gray Ornston,
Jr. (1992). Translating Freud (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), passim for a
more in-depth analysis of the Strachey translations of Freud.
8 See Jacques Lacan (1973, 1979). ‘The Deconstruction of the Drive,’ The Four Fundamental
Concepts of Psychoanalysis, translated by Alan Sheridan, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller
(London: Penguin Books), pp. 161-173. The Freudian theory of sexuality is described in
Sigmund Freud (1991). On Sexuality:ThreeEssays on Sexuality and Other Works, translated by
James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards (London: Penguin Books), Vol. 7, passim. Jacques
Alain Miller (1996) blends the Freudian and Lacanian approaches to sexuality quite
effectively in ‘On Perversion,’ in Reading Seminars I and II: Lacan’s Return to Freud, edited by
Richard Feldstein, Bruce Fink, and Maire Jaanus (Albany: SUNY Press), The Paris Seminars
in English, pp. 306-320.

5. 5
THE FREUDIAN LIBIDO
The sexual energy that animates the instincts and the instinctual life of human
subjects is known as the ‘libido.’9 A point that interests Freud greatly is that the
expression of an instinct is not straight forward; it is subject to ‘vicissitudes.’ In the
absence of these instinctual vicissitudes, it will not be possible to explain the
function of repression and the model of memory that it is related to. If the instincts
were not subject to vicissitudes and mediated by the signifier; to put it simply, there
would be no need for psychoanalysis.10 An important point that Freud makes is that
psychoanalysis studies the internal struggles that an individual is subject to; all
individuals will eventually die of internal conflicts. This argument however should
not be conflated with the endemic conflict between the species as a whole and the
external world that is studied in evolutionary biology. In other words, it is much
more difficult for individuals to find a biological niche than is the case for animals in
the natural world; the same is the case with the challenges of environmental
adaptation. The presence of the unconscious makes it much more difficult to study
human behaviour as a form of evolutionary adaptation. The unconscious, as Jacques-
Alain Miller points out, makes humans dis-adaptive in the evolutionary sense. This
important point here is related to the Lacanian critique of ego psychology as
‘reductive’ in its search for ‘adaptation’ to the biological or socio-cultural
environment as the main motive of all human striving.11 Furthermore, analysts
differentiate between object libido and ego libido; subjects who cannot love others
will wind up loving themselves; this is known as ‘narcissism.’ The adhesiveness of the
libido is also an important attribute of human sexuality. Freud, for instance,
contrasts the extreme ‘mobility’ of the libido in some subjects with its propensity to
9 Sigmund Freud (1923, 1993). ‘The Libido Theory,’ Historical and Expository Works on
Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Albert Dickson (London: Penguin
Books), pp. 153-157.
10 Sigmund Freud (1915, 1991). ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes,’ On Metapsychology: The
Theory of Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards (London:
Penguin Books), pp. 105-138.
11 Jacques-Alain Miller has argued, after Jacques Lacan, that ‘the unconscious is not
instinctual, that the unconscious is not equivalent to the blind knowledge of instinct which
enables the animal to survive in his need. Instinct, they say, is an adaptative function. I
would say, on the contrary, the Freudian unconscious is fundamentally disadaptative. That
is to say the unconscious response is never adequate. It runs contrary to an adequate
response. And so the unconscious is testimony, not to instincts, but to Trieb, the Freudian
word translated as ‘drive.’ See Jacques-Alain Miller (1988).‘Introductory Remarks before the
Screening of Television,’ Thursday, April 8, 1987, Great Hall, Cooper Union, New York,
available in the Newsletter of the Freudian Field, edited by Ellie-Ragland Sullivan, Vol. 2, No. 1,
Spring, 1988, pp. 6-16.

6. 6
‘fixation’ in others. The vicissitudes of the instincts then are to be situated within the
adhesiveness of the libido and the forms of symbolic mediation that it is subject to in
the matrix of Oedipus. In other words, this form of mediation that is related to the
‘incest taboo’ is of interest to both psychoanalysis and anthropology in their quest
for the minimal set of universals that constitute the human condition.12
SEXUALITY AND SUBJECTIVITY
Freud’s interest in libido theory is mainly dictated by the need to redefine the sexual
function in light of clinical evidence and the developmental model of the human
subject that is spelt out in his work. The main wager here is that sexuality is not
reducible to the bourgeois function of sexual reproduction. The sexual instincts are
put together by component instincts. The advent of sexuality is ‘diphasic’ in the
subject; it is divided by a period of latency which consolidates the gains of primary
repression. Furthermore, there is a revival of sexual fantasies during the pubertal
years which could culminate in a neurosis. It is therefore important to differentiate
between the oral, anal, phallic, and genital stages of sexual development. The most
important point that Freud makes from a semantic point of view is the conflation of
the terms ‘sexual’ and ‘genital’ in both everyday life and scientific usage. For Freud,
the genital is the last stage of sexual development but is not the same as sexuality;
this is because the human subject can easily ‘regress’ to earlier stages of development
under stress.13 While there are controversies on what exactly the definition of
regression should be, there is consensus amongst analysts that the idea of regression
cannot be dispensed with. Or, to put it simply, there are bound to be points of
weakness within the developmental path. The emergence of a neurosis will activate
the attributes of that particular stage of human development in which a patient
12 Though Freud argued for the universality of the Oedipus complex on the basis of the
clinical evidence that he encountered in his Viennese clinic, there has been a lot of interest in
this topic amongst anthropologists who seek to relate the ‘incest taboo’ with the Oedipus
complex; and the forms of agency that can be located in the locus of prohibition in both
patriarchal and matriarchal cultures. See, for instance, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1985). ‘The
Anthropologist and the Human Condition,’ The View from Afar, translated by Joachim
Neugroschel and Phoebe Hoss (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), pp. 25-36; Allen W. Johnson and
Douglass Price-Williams (1996). Oedipus Ubiquitous: The Family Complex in World Folk
Literature (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press). For a description of the relationship between
clinical work in psychoanalysis and field work in anthropology, see Robert A. Paul (1989).
‘Psychoanalytic Anthropology,’ in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 18, pp. 177-202 and
Robert A. LeVine (1996). ‘Psychoanalysis,’ in the Encyclopaedia of Cultural Anthropology, Vol.
3, edited by David Levinson and Melvin Ember (New York: Henry Holt & Company),
Human Relations Area Files at Yale University, pp. 1036-1042.
13 See Charles Rycroft (1968, 1995). ‘Regression,’ A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
(London: Penguin Books), pp. 153-155.

7. 7
might have faltered in his childhood. Furthermore, if sexuality were reducible to the
reproductive function, then, it will not be possible to account for sexual inversions and
perversions. Freud therefore proceeds on the fundamental assumption that all subjects
are originally constituted as bisexual, but are normativized in a heterosexual direction
in the interests of reproduction.14 Making progress in analysis depends on whether
the patient is able to come to terms with this inherent form of bisexuality of which he
may not be fully conscious; and the forms of imaginary and symbolic identification
that it implies of both an active and passive sort within the Oedipus complex in the
Freudian model of subjectivity.15 Every analysis, Freud argued, was bound to fail
when the patient had to work through the trauma induced by castration anxiety in
men and the relentless quest for phallic signification in women; these traumas
constitute the Freudian ‘bedrock’ of analysis.16 The cultural applications of these
insights about the human condition (in the study of anthropology, art, and
literature) proceeds through the systematic invocation of the differences between the
libidinal economy and the symbolic economy within which we find ourselves.17 It is
the all-pervasive conflict between these economies that attracts the attention of
analysts. The unconscious emerges then in the structural gap between these two
economies; psychoanalysis, in formal terms, then, is a type of gap analysis.18
FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
What are the forms of consciousness that constitute the psychical apparatus? Freud
argues that there are three levels of consciousness; these are known as the
unconscious, the preconscious, and consciousness. The Freudian model of memory
14 For essays on the ideological implications of this theme in bourgeois society, see the
volume edited by Anthony Molino and Christine Ware (2001). Where Id Was: Challenging
Normalization in Psychoanalysis (London and New York: Continuum Books).
15 For a Lacanian interpretation of the analytic model of identification, see the special issue of
the journal umbra, Vol. 1, 1998 from the Centre for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture
at SUNY, Buffalo.
16 See Dylan Evans on the ‘Castration Complex’ and the ‘Phallus’ in An Introductory
Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge), pp. 20-23 and pp. 140-144.
17 A simple introduction to the cultural applications of psychoanalysis is available in Ernest
Jones (1948, 1977). What is Psychoanalysis? (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press). An advanced
version in this genre is the volume edited by Peter Brooks and Alex Woloch (2000). Whose
Freud? The Place of Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press).
18 A good instance of this Lacanian approach to cultural matters can be found in Slavoj Žižek
(1994, 1995). The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Woman and Causality (London and
New York: Verso Books) and Slavoj Žižek (2003). Jacques Lacan: Critical Evaluations in
Cultural Theory, Vol. 4 (London and New York: Routledge).

8. 8
then must account for all these levels in the psyche. In order to do so, it invokes a
theory of forgetting under the aegis of terms like ‘infantile amnesia, primary
repression, and secondary repression.’ In the absence of these categories, all memory
will be activated at once making it impossible for the subject to think. Furthermore,
the subject will be overwhelmed by a perceptual and mnemonic overload (as is the
case with many idiot savants). The Freudian definition of trauma itself then is based
on the fact that the subject has filters in the psyche to reduce the stimuli that it is
subject to; the breaching of these filters is the prototype of trauma for the Freudian
subject. Freud’s description of psychical qualities then is an attempt to incorporate
the homeostatic principle of Walter Cannon within the theory of psychoanalysis.
Cannon’s homeostatic principle then is not only operative in physiology but has its
place in a theory of mind as well. The mind and the body must both keep levels of
tension as low as possible; otherwise they will simply wear out. The normative
subject of repression is able to do this; the idiot savant, the neurotic, and the
psychotic have difficulty in doing this. That is why neurotic suffering is embodied
with a form of jouissance that seeks to go ‘beyond the pleasure principle.’19 The
activation of the death instinct in the subject is the main reason for this form of
suffering. Even the milder forms of neuroses involve the neurotic subject seeking
pleasure in pain and pain in pleasure, as Freud points out, in his insightful paper on the
‘economic problem of masochism.’20 The Lacanian term for the forms of paradoxical
enjoyment embodied in masochism then is jouissance.21 The main source of jouissance
is the symptom: an important question in psychoanalysis then is the interpretation of
the symptom. Will interpreting the symptom make the suffering go away? Should
the analyst try to find out how exactly the symptom emerged in the life of the
patient? What is the patient’s level of awareness of his own symptoms? In other
words, the structural levels of consciousness in the psyche must be related to specific
memories about the origins of a particular symptom.22 Furthermore, these levels of
consciousness are related to the ways in which the psyche expends energy. The main
19 Sigmund Freud (1920, 1991). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle,’ On Metapsychology: The
Theory of Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards (London:
Penguin Books), 269-338.
20 Sigmund Freud (1924, 1991). ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism,’ On Metapsychology:
The Theory of Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards
(London: Penguin Books), 409-426.
21 See Dylan Evans (1997). ‘Jouissance,’ An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis
(London: Routledge), pp. 91-92.
22 For more on this theme, see Peter Lowenberg (2000). ‘Psychoanalysis as a Hermeneutic
Science,’ Whose Freud: The Place of Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture, edited by Peter
Brooks and Alex Woloch (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp. 96-115.

9. 9
problem with excessive levels of primary and secondary repression is that it is not
cost-effective. It is bound to reduce the amount of energy that the patient can invest
in the different activities that constitute his life since secondary repression (to
reinforce primary repression) requires an ongoing expenditure of energy lest
repressed memories return to full consciousness. And, finally, Freud differentiates
between the fluidity of the primary process that constitutes the unconscious and the
slower workings of the preconscious and consciousness which constitute the
secondary process. The Freudian theory of consciousness and memory then are to be
situated mid-way in the endemic conflict between the primary process and
secondary process. This conflict will affect every formation of the unconscious
including, as Freud goes on to explain, the structure of dreams.
THE STRUCTURE OF DREAMS
Freud’s focus on dreams is an attempt to illustrate similarities between the structure
of dreams and other ‘formations of the unconscious.’ He begins for instance by
asking a question that has moved into the mainstream in recent years: What exactly
are stable states? How different are they that from psychic conflicts? The significance
of these questions relates to the fact while levels of stability are of symptomatic
significance in analysis, Freud has not written extensively on stability. There is a
good reason for this. Subjects who are inherently stable do not reveal anything about
either their unconscious or the structure of the unconscious for Freudian meta-
psychology. It is neurotic conflict that provides a point of entry into the psyche; so,
by definition, there is an implicit relationship between a theory of stability and a
theory of the symptom. Freud addresses this connection head on. Freud’s main
contention is that a stable state is that in which the forms of resistance that
characterise the ego in the form of ego-defences are functional. However neurotic
states are those in which the onslaught of the id on the ego succeeds in breaching the
defences of the ego. This is more likely to be the case in which there is a ‘return of
the repressed’ due to fluctuations in the libidinal economy of the patient; or when
the subject encounters a trauma that can breach the conventional defences of the ego.
In other words, in order to understand stability, we have to look at patients who are
unstable rather than study patients who are stable. Dreams are of interest to Freud
because they constitute a form of behaviour that characterises both the normative
subject and the neurotic patient. It is therefore the study of the dream work that will
make it possible to arrive at a general theory of the subject. The most important
point that Freud makes about the structure of dreams is that the ‘manifest content’ of
the dream is not the same as the ‘latent content.’ The manifest content is what the
dreamer sees in his sleeping state. The meaning of the dream however is not obvious
to the dreamer; it demands interpretation. The associations related to the dream that
is opened up for analysis when the patient reports the dream through the process of

10. 10
secondary elaboration constitutes its ‘latent content.’ To put it simply: the analyst
cannot look into the head of the dreamer. The dreamer who can look at the dream
directly however cannot interpret the dream because he is not fully conscious of
what the dream represents for his unconscious.
THE DREAM WORK
The form of psychic transformation that produces the manifest content from the
latent content is known as ‘the dream work.’ Freud’s main purpose in studying
dreams is not reducible to interpreting specific dreams. It is instead an attempt to
describe the structure of the dream work and compare its structure to other
formations of the unconscious.23 When Freud does this, he finds that all formations
of the unconscious are subject to condensation and displacement. These are the
psychic mechanisms that constitute the primary process; distortions in the dream
work are a consequence of the dreamer not being able to interpret the significance of
these distortions in his psyche. ‘Condensation and displacement,’ as Jacques Lacan
was fond of pointing out, correspond to the structure of linguistic mechanisms like
‘metaphor and metonymy.’24 This similarity between psychic and linguistic
mechanisms is the main reason that literary critics were excited by the Lacanian
contention that the unconscious is structured like a language.25 So for both Freud and
Lacan, the dream work is extremely important. The main difference between
condensation and displacement is this. Condensation brings together fragmentary
images to form a composite image; displacement however is a way of shifting affect
from one signifier or image to another signifier or image. Interpreting dreams
therefore demands the ability to deconstruct the composite image that has been
condensed into its original sources in the life of the patient. The sources could be
childhood memories that have been repressed or that were subject to ‘infantile
amnesia.’ Or, they could be related to the ‘residues of the day’ on which the dreamer
23 Freud’s theory of dreams can be found in Sigmund Freud (1900, 1991). The Interpretation of
Dreams, translated by James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards (London: Penguin Books).
See also John Forrester (1997). ‘Dream Readers,’ Dispatches from the Freud Wars:
Psychoanalysis and its Passions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), pp. 138-183.
24 See Bruce Fink (1995). ‘Metaphor and the Precipitation of Subjectivity,’ The Lacanian
Subject: Between Language and Jouissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 69-79.
The interest in metaphor and other forms of figuration is however not specific to Lacanian
analysts. See for instance the recent volume edited by S. Montana Katz (2013). Metaphors and
Fields: Common Ground, Common Language, and the Future of Psychoanalysis (New York and
London: Routledge), Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series, edited by Joseph D. Lichtenberg.
25 See, for instance, Jacques Lacan (1966). ‘The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious,’
Yale French Studies, No. 36/37,pp. 112-147; Jan Miel (1966). ‘Jacques Lacan and the Structure
of the Unconscious,’ Yale French Studies,No. 36/37,pp. 104-111; and John Gasperoni (1996).
‘The Unconscious is Structured like a Language,’ Qui Parle, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 77-104.

11. 11
had a particular dream. Displacement of affect served to disguise the meaning of the
dream lest the subject wake up while sleeping. The trajectory of displacement would
have to be pursued by the patient while free-associating to the manifest content of
the dream. The transferential dimensions of the dream are also important because
patients have dreams that say a lot about how they relate to the analyst. The dream
can arise from either the id or the ego; in either case it is ‘a disguised form of wish-
fulfilment’ and serves to preserve the state of sleep in which the dreamer finds
himself. Freud points out that the function of memory is more ‘vivid’ in dreams;
dreams also constitute the ‘archaic heritage’ of humanity. This archaic heritage is less
important in the Freudian model than in the Jungian model of dream interpretation.
For Freud, the dreamer’s associations are paramount; for Jung, the archetypes that
can be excavated from the archaic heritage are a better way of approaching dreams.
Freud also notes the presence of ‘contraries’ in terms of the dreamer’s wishes within
the primary process mechanisms that constitute the unconscious. Whichever of these
wishes is libidinally reinforced by recent events is most likely to become the subject
matter of the dream. All dreams are not of the same type however; so, for instance,
Freud differentiates between dreams and nightmares (or ‘anxiety dreams’). While
the function of the dream is to represent repressed wishes as fulfilled in a disguised
form by subjecting them to distortion in order to preserve sleep, this mechanism
does not always function smoothly. In anxiety dreams, the subject is forced to wake
up because the process of distortion is not adequate to disguise the repressed wish. If
the dreamer encounters the repressed wish in too direct a form, it can trigger off
anxiety and thereby wake him up. The complexity of the dream will also vary
depending on whether the subject is a child or an adult. Dreams usually revolve
around themes like ‘hunger, convenience, and desire.’ It is these themes then that are
represented as disguised or distorted forms of wish-fulfilment without waking up
the dreamer.26
THE BASIC TECHNIQUE OF ANALYSIS
The basic ‘technique of psychoanalysis’ consists in recognizing that the ego is stuck
between the id and the super-ego. It tries to preserve some distance from both by
generating anti-cathexes. These anti-cathexes can however be maintained only
through a constant ‘expenditure of energy.’ The ego is willing to spend this energy
because it needs to preserve its autonomy. If it loses this autonomy (which could be
real or imagined) it will not be able to deal with the id, the super-ego, and with
external reality. The basic technique of analysis then consists in getting the analyst to
make a pact with the ego in order to relieve it of the need for this endless
expenditure of energy involved in maintaining primary and secondary repressions
26 For a history of the term ‘wish,’ and the role that it plays in psychoanalysis, see Edwin B.
Holt (1915). The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics (New York: Henry Holt & Company).

12. 12
in the form of anti-cathexes. Furthermore, in order to make it easier for the ego to
enter into the analytic pact, the analyst promises to deal with its associations with
the strictest discretion. In return for this assurance, the ego must deal with complete
candour. This is however easier said than done. Freud therefore differentiates
between the neurotic ego and the psychotic ego in terms of ‘the analytic pact.’ The
former is able to engage with the analytic pact, but the latter is not able to do so. That
is because the distortions that the psychotic ego must overcome in its dealings with
external reality are much more than that of the neurotic ego. That is why analysts
prefer to treat neurotics rather than psychotics. There are also instances when
neurotics reveal psychotic symptoms after they begin to free-associate; so differential
diagnosis becomes crucial in ascertaining who is suitable for analytic treatment. The
main criterion then is whether the patient can keep the analytic pact going for as
long as possible. This is because when the going gets difficult even the neurotic ego
will not be able to subsist with the endless demands of free-association and will
respond with a ‘negative therapeutic reaction.’ This could mean the premature end
of the analysis or the patient might act out conflicts outside the clinic rather than
remember and work-through the associated affects within the clinic. What Freud is
pitching for then is that part of the patient’s ego which is relatively speaking free of
neurotic conflict. A therapeutic alliance with this part than will make it possible to
relieve the pressure on the neurotic part. This, needless to say, is the element of the
Freudian doctrine that would constitute the core assumptions of ego psychology
which Jacques Lacan set out to critique in his theory of the imaginary.27 But,
nonetheless, Freud’s intention here is clear; he believes that ‘the analytic pact’ can be
made to work despite the difficulties involved in doing so. This is not only because
Freud felt that the technique of free-association made it possible to go beyond
hypnotism and suggestion with which he had started, but also because he had a
better understanding of the forms of resistance that constituted the ‘negative
therapeutic reaction’ in neurotic patients. In other words, Freud believed that he had
identified the existential dimension in the resistance (in the patient’s ‘need to suffer’
27 See, for instance, Joseph H. Smith (1983). ‘Lacan and the Subject of American
Psychoanalysis,’ Interpreting Lacan, edited by Joseph H. Smith and William Kerrigan (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press), Forum on Psychiatry and the Humanities, The
Washington School of Psychiatry, pp. 259-276. For a Lacanian critique of the imaginary, see
Marie-Hélène Brousse (1996). ‘The Imaginary,’ Reading Seminars I and II: Lacan’s Return to
Freud, edited by Richard Feldstein, Bruce Fink, and Maire Jaanus (Albany: SUNY Press), The
Paris Seminars in English, pp. 118-122.

13. 13
or to be miserable). But before exploring neurotic resistance, Freud explains the
fundamental rule of analysis that he termed ‘free-association.’28
THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE
The fundamental rule is to simply say everything that appears in the patient’s mind.
Those who doubt the existence of the unconscious, or the efficacy of getting to the
truth of repression, have but to try this method. They will immediately encounter the
fluidity of the primary process and will try to censor what they say out of fear that the
analyst will find it either disagreeable or simply nonsensical. Nonetheless following
the fundamental rule will generate the affects that Freud terms the ‘transference.’
What Freud meant by this term is that the patient begins to experience affects that
are a repetition of infantile prototypes from his early childhood. They constitute the
basic interpersonal patterns in which he related to his parents and guardians. The
expression of these affects in the clinical situation leads to a transference neurosis.
The focus of the treatment thenceforth becomes an attempt to come to terms with
what is revealed in the transference. Within the transference neurosis, the analyst
finds himself occupying the locus of an archaic parent figure who has an
opportunity for the ‘after-education of the neurotic’ patient. The patient may
however not be receptive to this after-education given that the transference is
constituted as a form of ‘ambivalence.’ In other words, the patient has both positive
and negative feelings for the analyst (like he did for his parents). The transference
must be handled carefully by the analyst in order to minimize the negative
dimension and maximize the positive aspects. If something goes wrong during this
process, the patient can abruptly seek to terminate the analysis. This will make it
difficult for the analyst to intervene in the inhibitions that constitute the
circumference of the patient’s neurosis. In addition to the inhibitions, the patient will
also have his usual share of symptoms and anxiety. 29
THE ANALYTIC PACT
The successful treatment of the patient depends on whether both the patient and the
analyst will remain faithful to ‘the analytic pact’ without acting out from either a
transferential or a counter-transferential point of view. Though Freud assumes that
the patient is more likely to violate the analytic pact; than the analyst, that is clearly
28 See Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (1973, 1988). ‘Free Association (Method or
Rule of), The Language of Psychoanalysis, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Introduction
by Daniel Lagache (London: Karnac Books and the Institute of Psychoanalysis), pp. 169-170.
29 Sigmund Freud (1926, 1987). ‘Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety,’ On Psychopathology,
translated by James Strachey, edited by Angela Richards (London: Pelican Books), pp. 227-
333. See also Jacques Lacan (2004, 2014). Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X,
translated by Adrian R. Price, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller (Cambridge: Polity Press).

14. 14
not always the case. The experiential significance of the transference in the analysis
is that the ‘patient never forgets again what he has experienced in the form of the
transference; it carries a greater force of conviction than anything he can acquire in
other ways.’ The main imperative in handling the transference carefully is to ensure
that the patient remembers ‘within’ the transference rather than act-outside the
transferential space of the clinic. Freud concludes his description of the technique of
analysis by pointing out that there is a structural gap between ‘what the analyst
knows’ and ‘what the patient knows’ about his neurosis. The patient can only be
cured if he is able to overcome his resistance within the positive transference. In such
a situation the analyst’s knowledge becomes his knowledge as well. If however the
patient winds up with a negative transference, his need for suffering, the chronic
preoccupation with neurotic guilt, the loss of the instincts needed for self-
preservation, the economic problem of masochism, and psychic inertia will conspire
to make it difficult for the analyst to make the patient’s ‘unconscious conscious.’ The
thought that his unconscious could be made conscious can itself be so traumatic a
possibility for the patient that he might prefer to dwell in neurotic misery for as long
as possible rather than work-through the ‘return of the repressed’ and the symptoms
that they constitute in his consciousness. In order to make a favourable therapeutic
outcome possible, however, Freud argues that clinical interventions must identify
the ‘quantitative variations’ that are required in the patient’s libidinal economy
during treatment. In the absence of the requisite psychopharmacological
interventions; which are outside the scope of psychoanalysis, the best hope for the
patient is in ‘the talking cure.’ That is the promise that is implicit in the fundamental
rule which demands that the patient must say whatever appears on the surface of his
mind without any attempt at self-censorship or fear of becoming incoherent to the
analyst who is trying to interpret his symptoms.30
TYPES OF NEUROSES
Before moving on to explore the ‘theoretical yield’ of psychoanalysis in the final part
of this outline, Freud points out that while the ‘psychoneuroses’ have a sexual
aetiology, that is not necessarily the case for the ‘traumatic neuroses’ which could
arise out of situations that constitute a shock or something akin to it for the subject.
30 See, for instance, the volume edited by Louis Paul (1963). Psychoanalytic Clinical
Interpretation (London: The Free Press) and the volume edited by Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek
(1973). The First Freudians (New York: Jason Aronson, Inc). The techniques associated with
the Freudian and Lacanian clinics are not necessarily the same. The best of the recent
introductions to the Lacanian clinic can be found in Bruce Fink (1997, 1999). A Clinical
Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis:Theory and Technique (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press) and Bruce Fink (2007). Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique: A Lacanian Approach
for Practitioners (New York: W.W. Norton & Company).

15. 15
In other words, the aetiology of the neuroses must contend with the fact that there
are bound to be quantitative disturbances in the libidinal economy of the subject.
What is interesting to observe in the aetiology of the neuroses is that events which
can be traumatic for the immature ego of the child will not be so difficult for adults
to cope with. Nonetheless the reality of the demands that are made on the immature
ego cannot be wished away. The differences between the aetiological factors in the
psychoneuroses and traumatic neuroses are not iron-clad. This is because whenever
the protective shield against stimuli is breached in the subject, it can induce the
effects of a trauma. The psyche is affected by both internal and external forms of
excitation. Since the subject cannot flee from internal sources of excitation, there is a
propensity to respond with repression. The analytic model of causation is also
affected by Wilhelm Roux’s experiments in embryology. Roux, and the psychologists
affected by Roux’s experiments, were believers in the ‘critical period hypothesis.’31
In other words, childhood traumas exercise a disproportionate effect in the lives of
patients. They need to be worked-through in the psyche even after the subjects
concerned have become fully grown adults. If the shocks, fantasies, and traumas are
not worked-through adequately, they can become a libidinal source for the
generation of symptoms which constitute either a substitutive form of satisfaction or
a compromise between the different agencies that constitute the psychic apparatus.
In order to appreciate the causal factors in the neuroses, Freud appends his theory of
infantile sexuality, the latency period, and the diphasic model of sexuality in humans
within his theory of sexuality. Freud also situates this theory in relation to the
Oedipus and castration complexes; and the important role played by the mother as
the prototype of all object relations in later life.
CONCLUSION
And, finally, Freud concludes by noting that the theoretical yield of psychoanalysis
in this outline constitutes the following: it is difficult to decisively draw the line that
separates what is normal from what is neurotic; psychoanalysis has both a
psychological and a biological dimension; the study of dreams is crucial to the
analytic model of subjectivity; the main function of analysis is to fill in the gaps in
the patient’s consciousness; the reality of the repressed and the unconscious are not
encountered directly but inferred from their formations; the structural model of the
id, the ego, and the super-ego must be related to the psychic apparatus; this model
makes it possible to both visualize and explain the endemic conflicts between the
31 Jacques Lacan was also interested in embryological phenomena like ‘foetalization’ and
understood the importance of the critical period hypothesis. See Jacques Lacan (1949, 1977,
1992). ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in psychoanalytic
Experience,’ Écrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller
(London: Tavistock/Routledge), pp. 1-7.

16. 16
different agencies, instincts, and forces in the human mind; human behaviour can be
understood in terms of the opposition between the pleasure principle and the reality
principle; the neuroses can be classified into different types on the basis of their
origins; they are the psychoneuroses and the traumatic neuroses; the aetiology of the
psychoneuroses relates to sexual fantasies or experiences that have not been
metabolized by the ego; the main cause of the traumatic neuroses relate to shocks in
which the psyche was overwhelmed with stimuli; neuroses can also be caused by
sexual precocity in childhood; this leads to a situation where libidinal expression is
ahead of ego development; the re-activation of these libidinal phantasies during the
‘transformations of puberty’ can lead to the generation of neurotic symptoms in the
subject; the ego is constituted by a number of defences including forms of splitting;
the study of these defences will help us to differentiate between the psychoneuroses
and the psychoses; ego defences in addition to repression include disavowal in
fetishism; the super-ego is the heir of the Oedipus complex; every subject has to
resolve the Oedipus complex and individuate in a harmonious way in order to avoid
the pain of a neurosis or a psychosis in adult life. These topics, needless to say, do
not constitute the theoretical yield of psychoanalysis in its entirety; but are specific to
the theoretical areas and clinical concerns that Sigmund Freud is able to do justice to
in this brief and final outline of psychoanalysis in 1938-40.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN