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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON BOREDOM. Hanna Fenichel, Ph.D.
Fenichel1 discusses many aspects of the psychology of boredom without reaching any definite conclusions. He differentiates quiet from restless states of boredom. In the former 'the cathexes are, so to speak, tonically bound, whereas in the latter the binding is clonic'. The basic impulses against which boredom is a defense seem to be oral-sadistic and narcissistic drives. Bergler's papers2 are polemics against Fenichel's concepts. He formulates a triad of