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Boredom is a phenomenon which is easier to describe than to define. The uniqueness of the feeling of being bored seems to depend upon the coexistence of the following components: a state of dissatisfaction and a disinclination to action; a state of longing and an inability to designate what is longed for; a sense of emptiness; a passive, expectant attitude with the hope that the external world will supply the satisfaction; a distorted sense of time in which time seems to stand still. (The German word for boredom is Langeweile—which, literally translated, means "long time.")
Boredom is seen to occur in healthy people as a transient state. In the neurotic, boredom usually does not play an important role since the patient is preoccupied with anxieties, depressions, frustrations, obsessions, etc. In the psychoses, boredom proper is rarely described, but we do see similar reactions in apathy and in the depressions.
It is the purpose of this presentation to investigate, on the basis of clinical material, the various dynamic and structural factors responsible for the state of boredom. The most systematic and comprehensive analysis of this subject was made by Fenichel (3) in 1934. In that paper Fenichel demonstrated that the bored person is in a state of dammed-up instinctual tension, but the objects and aims are repressed. He described two forms of boredom, one characterized by motor calmness, the other by motor restlessness; but he found in both the same essential pathology. He, and later