Terrorization of the Libido and Snow White

I have had a difficulty with the psychoanalytic terminology. In states of anxiety—but there is the very problem. I was compelled to speak of a state of anxiety. A state of anything is essentially static. On the other hand we are accustomed, in psychoanalysis, to consider dynamics rather than a state. It is possible that this may be connected with an ancient problem in psychoanalysis. May libido be converted into anxiety? If this were so it would tend to leave libido as the one motivating force. Relatively recently, Freud, somewhat in line with Jones, has shown that this is by no means a settled problem. I do not believe we have to await its solution before more carefully delineating less deep strata. Indeed it may be only by this gradual descent that the problem will be solved at all.

The early discovery of the power of sexual instinct factors in human illness had a tendency to orient the psychoanalytic terminology. On closer examination of the self-preservative instinct new factors arise. For example, is there a verb in the terminology to describe what occurs when an individual is threatened with castration? He ‘becomes’ anxious or ‘is placed’ in a state of anxiety. These, however, are not specific terms. With libido we do not have this problem. Where an organ is invested with libido we say it has been libidinized or perhaps cathected. We know that a libidinization may tend to diminish anxiety, as if love had in some way effected some balance. Where anxiety is great we are apt to say anxiety has been libidinized. This often is a gross misrepresentation of the dynamics of the situation. This is more apparent when describing a castration threat and its effect. The fact is, in such cases the libido has been terrorized. This is the term, it seems, that would more properly describe the dynamics of certain anxiety states, noteworthily those where even suggestions in the realm of sexuality are met with precipitates of anxiety. We thus may speak of terrorized libido and of