On a Form of Defense

In his book, The Problem of Anxiety, Freud expresses the opinion that in the stage preceding the separation of ego and id there are probably forms of defense at work other than those seen after this phase of organization has been reached. Later he confirms this assumption by giving an instance of the transformation of the death instinct into sadism and masochism through its fusion with the life instinct.1 Perhaps it is no undue amplification to regard this process as a kind of defensive attitude towards an instinct—death instinct in this case—by way of fusion. The reverse of this process would be defusion, a process represented according to Freud by regression in the direction of the sadistic stage. The former form of defense is probably more primitive than the latter, and consequently it might exist before the development of the ego has set in.

The libidinization of the death instinct once acquired is not lost; it produces its effects in various forms, from the process of wound healing to the incorporation of neurotic symptoms into the structure of the ego; moreover it is always accompanied by the tendency to transform pain into pleasure. Masochism is the prototype of this process. A striking effect of the peculiar form of defense here to be described was observed in certain neuroses of long standing characterized by a continuous state of erotic excitement. In the course of these neuroses the patients indulged in masochistic erotic fantasies as well as in substitutive actions for onanism and representations of erection achieved often by means of strange muscular activities. That these symptoms served narcissistic gratification was obvious from a simultaneous state of quasi intoxication.

This type of symptom could be described as a reappearance