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Freud brings up first, the differentiation between inhibition and symptom and indicates, at the same time, their relation to anxiety. He states that the use of speech enables us to differentiate, in the description of pathological phenomena, between symptom and inhibition, but he states further that that does not bring us close to the question were it not for the cases of illness in which we had to differentiate between symptom and inhibition; and were we not concerned as to their determinants we would hardly have sufficient interest to investigate the concepts which separate one from the other.
Both originated on the same basis. Inhibition has particular relation to function and need not be pathological. Symptom, on the contrary, has a pathological significance, and inhibition can at the same time be a symptom. Then we would say that inhibition entails a lowering of function and symptom entails an unusual change in the function or is concerned with a new activity. Often it seems arbitrary as to whether we call it the one or the other. Since inhibition is so closely related to function we can profitably investigate the various ego functions to see in what forms their disturbance is manifest in the neurosis.
Freud gives four phases of ego function: 1. Sexual, among which are
a. Sources of disturbance exist in this sphere which show a character of simple inhibition, all of these coming under the head of