Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Conflict

Christopher Christian, Morris N. Eagle, David L Wolitzky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317636601
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicoanalisi

Since its inception, and throughout its history, psychoanalysis has been defined as a psychology of conflict. Freud's tripartite structure of id, ego and superego, and then modern conflict theory, placed conflict at the center of mental life and its understanding at the heart of therapeutic action. As psychoanalysis has developed into the various schools of thought, the understanding of the importance of mental conflict has broadened and changed.?

In Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Conflict, a highly distinguished group of authors outline the main contemporary theoretical understandings of the role of conflict in psychoanalysis, and what this can teach us for everyday psychoanalytic practice. The book fills a gap in psychoanalytic thinking as to the essence of conflict and therapeutic action, at a time when many theorists are re-conceptualizing conflict in relation to aspects of mental life as an essential component across theories.

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Conflict will be of interest to psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, and other students and professionals involved in the study and practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, cognitive science and neuroscience.

Chapter 1
Inner conflict in Freudian theory

Morris N. Eagle

E. Kris (1947) remarked that the subject matter of psychoanalysis is human behavior from the point of view of conflict. This is certainly true from both a historical and theoretical perspective. As is now a familiar account, the birth of psychoanalysis is marked by Breuer and Freud’s (1893–1895) explanation of hysterical symptoms in terms of an “incompatibility” (p. 16) between certain mental contents, that is, between certain desires, wishes, and fantasies and the ego, that is, one’s sense of one’s self, including what one views as right or wrong. As Breuer and Freud (1893–1895) put it, “It turns out to be a sine qua non for the acquisition of hysteria that an incompatibility should develop between the ego and some idea presented to it” (p. 122). In other words, a necessary factor in the development of hysteria is the presence of inner conflict. In all of Freud’s early cases, the individual is in the throes of a conflict between desire and reactions to that desire. In the case of Anna O, Breuer and Freud (1893–1895) write:

She began coughing for the first time when once, as she was sitting at her father’s bedside, she heard the sound of dance music coming from a neighbouring house, felt a sudden wish to be there, and was overcome with self-reproaches. Thereafter, throughout the whole length of her illness she reacted to any markedly rhythmical music with a tussis nervosa.

(p. 40)

Elisabeth von R’s conflict is between her “blissful feelings she had allowed herself to enjoy” (p. 146) with a young man and guilt at leaving her sick father. And for Lucy R, the conflict is between her desires and fantasies in relation to her employer and her reaction to the shock of reality indicating that her feelings toward him are not returned.

Although inner conflict may be a necessary condition for the development of hysterical symptoms, it is not a sufficient one. Repression must also be present. Freud was certainly aware that many people experience inner conflict without developing hysteria – just as Janet (1907) was undoubtedly aware that many people undergo traumatic experiences without developing the “splitting of consciousness” (Breuer & Freud, 1893–1895, p. 12) characteristic of hysteria. Janet’s (1889) proposal was that the core predisposing factor of constitutional weakness must also be present. It is Freud’s rejection of this proposal and his positing of repression, which he refers to as the “cornerstone” of psychoanalysis (S. Freud, 1893a) as a necessary factor in hysteria that marks the birth of psychoanalysis. Breuer and Freud (1893–1895) write that “before hysteria can be acquired for the first time one essential condition must be fulfilled: an idea must be intentionally repressed from consciousness” (p. 123). In short, at this early stage of his writings Freud proposes an etiological model for the development of psychopathology: the presence of inner conflict that is dealt with through repression, in Freud’s words, “an occurrence of incompatibility” (i.e., inner conflict) that arouses “such a distressing affect that the subject decided to forget about it because he had no confidence in his power to resolve the contradiction between the incompatible idea and his ego by means of thought-activity” (S. Freud, 1894, p. 47). Thus, it is not conflict per se that is pathogenic, but the particular means of dealing with it.

Why, however, should the use of repression be pathogenic? Freud provides at least two reasons. One reason has to do with his assumption that every experience is accompanied by a “quota of affect” that needs to be discharged and is normally discharged through action, including talking about it (Breuer & Freud, 1893–1895, p. 166). With certain people, and in certain circumstances, particularly when an experience is accompanied by a large amount of affect, affect does not get discharged and remains in a “strangulated” state.

However, as Strachey (1955) asks in the Editor’s introduction to Studies on Hysteria, “Why should affect need to be ‘discharged’? And why are the consequences of its not being discharged so formidable?” The answer to these questions, as Strachey notes, is found in Freud’s “principle of constancy,” which was first enunciated in a 1893 lecture and more fully stated in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (S. Freud, 1920). According to the principle of constancy, every experience entails an increase in “the sum of excitation” (S. Freud, 1893a, p. 36) and a “quota of affect” (Breuer & Freud, 1893–1895, p. 166) that need to be discharged. S. Freud (1893a) writes that “in every individual there exists a tendency to diminish this sum of excitation… in order to preserve his health” (p. 36). Indeed, according to S. Freud (1920) the mind (or nervous system) is essentially an “apparatus” designed to discharge excitation or to keep “the quantity of excitation present… as low as possible or at least to keep it constant” (p. 9). When the sum of excitation or quota of affect is not adequately discharged, the “quota of affect” is converted to somatic hysterical symptoms through a process that, Freud acknowledged, he did not understand.

It is not only failure to discharge excitation that Freud viewed as pathogenic but also the isolation of mental contents that repression entails. Thus, although repression enables the ego to “succeed[s] in freeing itself from the contradiction… it has burdened itself with a mnemic symbol which finds a lodgment in consciousness, like a sort of parasite” (S. Freud, 1894, p. 49). Freud’s reference to a “sort of parasite” parallels Janet’s description of “an idea excluded from personal consciousness” as “a virus, [which] develops in a corner of the personality inaccessible to the subject, works subconsciously, and brings about all disorders of hysteria” (Janet, 1889, quoted in Ellenberger, 1970, p. 149). Similarly, Charcot writes the following:

an idea, a coherent group of associated ideas settle themselves in the mind in the fashion of parasites, remaining isolated from the rest of the mind and expressing themselves outwardly through corresponding motor phenomena.… The group of suggested ideas finds itself isolated and cut off from the control of that large collection of personal ideas accumulated and organized from a long time, which constitutes consciousness proper, that is the Ego.

(Charcot, 1885, cited in Ellenberger, 1970, p. 149)

Thus, although Freud disagrees with Janet and Charcot regarding their nature and the means by which the isolation of mental contents from “personal consciousness” comes about, they agree regarding the pathogenic potential of isolated mental contents existing in the personality. I think it is accurate to say that this idea is the single most continuous idea running from pre-psychoanalytic to classical psychoanalytic to contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing.

Like a foreign body, the repressed idea is prevented from entering “the great complex of associations” (Breuer & Freud, 1893–1895, p. 37) constituting the ego and, therefore, prevents a “wearing away” process (S. Freud, 1893a, p. 37) and its “rectification by other ideas” (Breuer & Freud, 1893–1895, p. 9). One consequence is that the repressed traumatic idea retains its “freshness and affective strength” (p. 11), and the other consequence is that “psychical traumas which have not been disposed of by reaction cannot be disposed of either by being worked over by means of association” (p. 11). Thus, Freud essentially proposes two ways in which repression impairs the individual’s ability to deal with traumatic ideas: one, through prevention of affective discharge, and the second, through interfering with the wearing away and associative rectification processes to which traumatic ideas are normally subjected. Freud writes that “even if [a psychical trauma] has not been abreacted,” there are other methods of “dealing with the situation… open to a normal person” (p. 9), which, he identifies as the “rectification by other ideas” (p. 9).¹

Although Freud repeatedly refers to traumatic ideas, unlike Janet and Charcot, who have in mind external traumas (e.g., railway accidents), Freud essentially defines trauma in terms of the individual’s inability to adequately discharge the “quota of affect” or sum of excitation associated with an experience and/or inability to integrate the representation of the experience into the “great complex of associations” constituting the ego. Thus, from this newly introduced psychoanalytic perspective, the forbidden conflictual erotic desires and fantasies highlighted in the early case histories, although triggered by external events, are as much the source of trauma as the external events of primary interest to Janet and Charcot. To sum up, the birth of psychoanalysis is marked by the attribution of hysterical symptoms, not to the combination of external trauma and constitutional weakness, but to the interaction between inner conflict and the use of repressive defenses as a means of dealing with it.²

Freud’s early formulation of the etiology of hysteria is structurally similar to his later account of neurosis and to certain aspects of his model of the mind, including the fundamental relationship between the individual and physical and social reality. With the advent of drive theory, the “incompatibility between an idea and the ego” becomes elaborated into a drive-defense or id-ego model, with instinctual wishes constituting the main source of “incompatible ideas” and undischarged “quota of affect” and excitation. However, whereas the role of inner conflict in hysteria is, so to speak, fortuitous and contingent (i.e., triggered by a set of circumstances) once drive theory is formulated as a core aspect of psychoanalytic theory, inner conflict between the id and the ego (as well as the superego) is now understood as an inevitable feature of the human condition.

At various points in his writings, Freud refers to the inevitable conflict between id and ego, in particular, the danger to the ego of instinctual demands. Thus, he states that “what it is that the ego fears from the external and the libidinal danger cannot be specified; we know that the fear is of being overwhelmed or annihilated” (S. Freud, 1923, p. 57). He also writes that “the majority of the instinctual demands of this infantile sexuality are treated by the ego as dangers and fended off as such” (S. Freud, 1926 [1925], p. 155). As another example: “In the first place, an excessive strength of instinct can damage the ego in a similar way to an excessive ‘stimulus’ from the external world” (S. Freud, 1940a, p. 199). Anna Freud (1966a) refers to the ego’s “primary antagonism to instinct” and its “dread of the strength of instinct” (p. 157) and sums matters up by stating that “the danger which threatens the ego is that it may be submerged by the instincts; what it dreads above all is the quantity of instinct” (p. 165). Indeed, so fundamental is the danger that the id represents, that according to A. Freud (1966a), strength of instinct is a causal factor in psychosis. This inherent antagonism between id and ego is not so much contingent upon environmental influences (e.g., parental prohibitions)³ but rather upon our psychobiological nature as it unfolds in society.

According to Freud, insofar as, in accord with the constancy principle, excessive and undischarged excitation constitutes the greatest threat to the ego, and insofar as instinct represents the major inner source of such excitation, it follows that undischarged tensions associated with instinct constitute an inherent potential threat to the ego – thus the fundamental antagonism between instinct and ego. The early notion that the “quota of affect” accompanying every experience needs to be discharged has now been elaborated into the ideas that instinct makes a demand upon the mind and that the tensions associated with instinctual wishes need to be discharged.⁴ Given our psychobiological nature, the tensions generated by ungratified instinctual wishes do not disappear; they continue to exert pressure on the mind and “seek” various means of discharge.⁵ If because of inner conflict, the forbidden instinctual wish cannot be gratified directly and an adequate discharge of instinctual tensions cannot occur, one possible consequence is disguised and partial gratification in the compromise form of a neurotic symptom. This more general formulation of the development of symptomatology has now replaced the earlier more specific proposal that undischarged “quota of affect” or sum of excitation is converted into hysterical symptoms.⁶ In short, inner conflict is at the core of the neurosis.

The assumption that conflict is inevitable given our psychobiological nature is articulated by Freud in a number of other ways. There is the inevitable conflict between the pleasure principle (characterized by primary process thinking) and the reality principle (characterized by secondary process thinking). According to S. Freud (1900), early in life mental functioning is entirely dominated by the pleasure principle, that is, the demand for immediate gratification, as expressed, for example, in hallucinatory wish fulfillment. The infant and child learn over time that these methods are not successful in meeting one’s needs to achieving gratification and, therefore, are forced to turn to objects in external reality and to recognize means-ends relationships in the outer world. That is, one slowly moves from the dominance of the pleasure principle to the emergence of the reality principle. However, S. Freud (1900) maintains that the influence of the pleasure principle never disappears and the tension or conflict between the pleasure principle and the reality principle remains as a permanent feature of mental functioning. That is, the demand for immediate gratification, the resort to wishful thinking, and the conflict between this mode of mental functioning and more reality-oriented cognition never disappear from mental life.

Early in life, the conflict between the pleasure principle and the reality principle is one between inner demands and wishes and the hard, unyielding nature of physical reality. That is, the sheer facts of both our biological nature and of physical reality are such that gratification of one’s needs and wishes require commerce with objects in the world. Immediate gratification is not always possible, and wishing does not make it so. Learning and internalizing these facts is largely what is meant by the development of reality-testing. With the development of the ego as, among other functions, the agent of reality-testing, what early in life is essentially a conflict between wishes and the nature of external reality becomes transformed into an inner conflict – one between peremptory wishes (id) and assessments of reality (ego). Hence, from the start, there is an inevitable conflict between the id and the ego, a conclusion, as we have seen, that is repeatedly stated by both Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud.

A trajectory paralleling the relationship between the individual and physical reality also characterizes the relationship between the individual and social reality. Early in life, the conflict is between inner demands and the external social reality of prohibitions and limitations. In the course of development, societal prohibitions and values, as transmitted through the socialization agents of parents, family, and educators, become internalized in the form of a superego structure. Thus, what starts out as a conflict between inner demands and external social reality becomes transformed into an inner conflict between different aspects of oneself, namely, instinctual urges and internalized values and prohibitions.

Various forms of conflict in Freudian theory

Although there is wide agreement that the id-ego or drive-defense model captures the dominant classical view regarding the nature of inner conflict, in the corpus of his writings, Freud also refers to other forms of inner conflict. For the sake of comprehensiveness, I want to at least note their presence. They include the following:

1. The conflict between “the affectionate and sensual currents” which is implicated in sexual difficulties such as inhibition of desire and “psychical impotence” (S. Freud, 1912a), and which can be interpreted as a conflict between attachment and sexuality (Eagle, 2013).
2. The conflict between love and hate central to ambivalence and implicated in melancholia (S. Freud, 1909, pp. 236–238).
3. The conflict between heterosexuality and homosexuality, a product of our bisexual nature (S. Freud, 1937, p. 244).
4. The ego-superego conflict between seeking fulfillment of one’s ambitions and fear of punishment implicated in the phenomenon of being “wrecked by success” (S. Freud, 1916, pp. 316–318).
5. The conflict within the ego between the “old peaceful ego” and the “new warlike [ego]” (p. 209) presumably central in “war neurosis” (S. Freud, 1919, pp. 208–213).⁷
6. The conflict between sexual and ego or self-preservative instincts, which S. Freud (1910b, pp. 214–215) compares to love and hunger. It is not clear why these two instincts should conflict with each other until one recognizes that according to Freudian metapsychology, the tensions inherent in the sexual instinct represent a potential threat of overwhelming the ego. In short, this is a variation of the id-ego conflict.
7. The conflict between renouncing satisfaction in the face of a danger from reality (e.g., threat of castration) and the disavowal of reality, along with the continued pursuit of satisfaction (e.g., masturbation). What is especially interesting about this form of conflict is that according to S. Freud (1940b), both trends occur at the same time. Thus, as the title of Freud’s paper makes clear, the result is “splitting of the ego in the process of defense” (a topic that will be taken up in Chapter 5 on Fairbairn’s object relations theory).
8. The overarching conflict between the “two primal instincts Eros and destructiveness” (S. Freud, 1937, p. 246) (derived from Empedocles’s love and strife), which Freud introduced relatively late in his writings.

I want to spend some time on this posited overarching conflict. The fundamental and irreducible nature of the conflict between Eros and destructiveness or the death instinct posited by Freud is probably the clearest expression of his views regarding the inescapable presence of conf...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Inner conflict in Freudian theory
• 2 The evolution of modern conflict theory
• 3 The fate of conflict and the impoverishment of our clinical methods
• 4 Conflict from the perspective of free association
• 5 Inner conflict in Fairbairn’s theory of endopsychic structure
• 6 Kleinian and post-Kleinian perspectives on conflict
• 7 Analytic trust, transference, and the importance of conflict
• 8 Emergence of conflict during the development of self: a relational self psychology perspective
• 9 The phenomenological contextualism of conflict: an intersubjective perspective
• 10 Conflict and change: producer, trigger, sign, outcome
• 11 The dialectic of desire: a view of intrapsychic conflict in the work of Jacques Lacan
• 12 Forces at play in psychical conflict
• 13 On conflict in attachment theory and research
• 14 Addressing defenses against painful emotions: modern conflict theory in psychotherapeutic approaches with children
• 15 Implicit attitudes, unconscious fantasy, and conflict
• 16 Neural basis of intrapsychic and unconscious conflict and repetition compulsion
• References
• Index