Chapter 11. Learning from Experience

1 The theory of functions, and the theory of alpha-function in particular, makes possible further contributions to an understanding of thought processes. I shall consider the nature and function of thinking in any situation that seems to mirror an early age in the life of man, or his current primitive depths, where it would be possible to detect the qualities we associate with thought. In his paper, ‘Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning’, Freud says, “Restraint of motor discharge (of action) had now become necessary and was provided by means of the process of thought, which was developed from ideation. Thought was endowed with qualities which made it possible for the mental apparatus to support increased tension during a delay in the process of discharge. It is essentially an experimental way of acting, accompanied by displacement of smaller quantities of cathexis together with less expenditure (discharge) of them.” He continues, “For this purpose conversion of free cathexis into ‘bound’ cathexis was imperative, and this was brought about by means of raising the level of the whole cathectic process.” He continues further, “It is probable that thinking was originally unconscious, in so far as it rose above mere ideation and turned to the relations between the object-impressions, and that it became endowed with further qualities which were perceptible to consciousness only through its connection with the memory traces of words.” Implicit in Freud's statement is the part played by intolerance of frustration in producing tension, and then its relief, by the employment of thought to fill the interval between the need to unburden the psyche of accretions of stimuli and the actual unburdening. The link between intolerance of frustration and the development of thought is central to an understanding of thought and its disturbances. Freud's statement suggests that the

reality principle is sequent to the pleasure principle; it needs modification to make