You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
A Few Theoretical Remarks on Paranoia1
The basic situation is roughly this: a person (f.)2 conceives a desire for intercourse with a man. It is repressed and reappears in the following form: people outside say she has this desire, which she denies. (Or else: the intercourse has taken place during the night against her will. But this is not the primary form.)
What has happened in this type of repression and reappearance typical of paranoia? An idea—the content of a desire—has arisen and persisted, it has even ceased to be ucs. and becomes cs. But this idea which originated within has been projected outward and reappears as perceived reality, against which repression can manifest itself anew as opposition. Belief has been withheld from the wish-affect; with the reappearance of the idea a contrasting, hostile affect is manifested.
The projection requires explanation. What is the condition for the outward projection of an inner affectively cathected process? A glance at the normal situation: Originally our cs. registers only two types of experience. From outside, perceptions (P), which as such are not affectively cathected and have qualities; from within it experiences “sensations,” which are manifestations of drives in certain organs. These are only in small degree qualitative, but are capable of strong quantitative cathexis. What shows such quantity is located within, what is qualitative and without affect is localized outside.
Of course this is crudely schematic. All processes of mental representation, thought, etc. are composed of elements from both sides.
What arrives at the P. end meets with immediate belief; what originates within the psyche is subjected to a reality test (which consists in reduction to P.) and to the repressive tendency which is directed against the unpleasure qualities of the sensations.