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Freud finds that “what is fine about humor is the triumph of narcissism, the ego's victorious assertion of its own invulnerability. It refuses to be hurt by the arrows of reality or to be compelled to suffer. It insists that it is impervious to wounds dealt by the outside world, in fact, that these are merely occasions for affording it pleasure. This last trait is a fundamental characteristic of humor.”1 In this connection, Freud characterizes the relationship between the ego and the super-ego of the humorist as follows: The humorist displaces large quantities of cathexis from his ego to his super-ego, resulting in a hypercathexis of the latter. The super-ego, otherwise the “stern master,” allows the ego a slight but intense gain in pleasure in accordance with the motto: “Look here! This is all that this seemingly dangerous world amounts to. Child's play, the very thing to jest about!” The super-ego, in humor, “speaks kindly words of comfort to the intimidated ego,” and tries to “comfort the ego, and protect it from suffering.” The dynamic conception of the displacement of large quantities of cathexis from the ego to the super-ego is a completion of the economic aspect of humor described by Freud in 1905, which consists in a saving in expenditure of affect. There are many types of humor, in accordance with the nature of the affect which is spared in humor: sympathy, pain, pathos, fright, horror, disgust, etc.
Anna Freud has called attention to the fact that a humorous mood may develop in children after they have overcome the fear of punishment. The lecture given by Anna Freud at the Oxford convention has not been published. Her own report on “Ein Gegenstuck zur