Modifications of Previously Expressed Views

1. Resistance and Countercathexis.

An important aspect of the theory of repression is that repression represents a process taking place not only once, but that it demands a lasting supply. This prevents the once repressed impulse from taking again the same path as that which it sought before it was repressed. The ego must, because of the continuous nature of the impulse, then assure for its defense activity, a lasting sumptuous supply. (Daueraufwand.) This action for the defense of the repression we recognize in the psychoanalytic therapy as resistance. Resistance presupposes (the existence of) what Freud previously called countercathexis (Gegenbesetzung). This appears as an ego-change, as a reaction formation in the ego, through the reinforcement of that attitude (Einstellung) which is opposed to the impulse that is to be repressed. They appear in the compulsions as exaggerations of the normal reaction formations manifest in the course of the latency period as character traits. In the hysterias it is more difficult to locate the counter-cathexis. It is present most frequently in the reaction-formation of tenderness for and anxious solicitude regarding an object, for whom hostility has been repressed; but the change in the ego is in the direction of the love-object only, and is not generally applicable; that is, not to all children does the hysteric show such (changed) tenderness; unlike in this respect to the compulsion neurotic, in whom this generalization, the loosening of object attachments, the making easy of distribution of love of objects, is characteristic. In hysteria, the delimitation of ego function enables the patient to prevent conscious knowledge of dangerous situations, or to withdraw attention (Wahrnehmung) from them if consciousness of them did already result. This is called by Lafourge skotomati-zation. This is marked also in the phobias, in which the technique of the counter-cathexis is to keep away from conscious knowledge of dangerous situations.