A Critical Consideration of Bernfeld and Feitelberg's Theory of Psychic Energy

The theory of Bernfeld and Feitelberg is an attempt to apply to psychic phenomena the concept of energy, as it is used in physics. It is necessary to preface a consideration of this theory with a brief review of certain concepts in physics.

Quantities of energy may be expressed as the product of two factors, an intensity factor and a capacity factor. A good example would be the energy contained in a volume of gas under pressure. This would be expressed as the product of the pressure (intensity factor) and the volume (capacity factor). Another example would be that of heat. The total heat (energy) contained in a body would be the product of its temperature (intensity factor) and its thermal capacity (capacity factor). Thermal capacity is that quantity which, expressed in terms of unit volume, is called specific heat. The intensity factor is always the one which determines the direction in which energy will flow. Thus heat flows from a region of higher temperature to one of lower temperature and the pressure of a volume of gas can be used to compress other volumes of gas only if the latter are at a lower pressure originally.1 The law which states that energy flows only from regions of higher intensity to regions of lower intensity is called the second law of thermodynamics.2

The theory of Bernfeld and Feitelberg is an attempt to explain psychological phenomena in terms of displacements of energy, in the sense in which that word is used in physics. Leaving