a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

evealed by psychoanalysis? I answer you: Surely it must be possible and at
some time or other it will take place; but the methods by which we organize
the work of psychoanalysis do not favor our beginning with just this task. We
can foresee the time when this task will claim the attention of psychoanalysis.
There are forms of neuroses, the so-called narcistic neuroses, in which the
ego is far more deeply involved than in anything we have studied heretofore.
The analytic investigation of these conditions will enable us to judge reliably
and impartially the part that the ego plays in neurotic illness.
One of the relations which the ego bears to its neurosis is so obvious that it
must be considered at the very outset. In no case does it seem to be absent,
and it is most clearly recognizable in the traumatic neuroses, conditions which
we do not as yet clearly understand. You must know that in the causation and
mechanisms of all possible forms of neurosis, the same factors are active
again and again; it is only the emphasis that is shifted from one to the other
of these factors in symptom formation. The members of a company of actors
each have certain parts to play—hero, villain, confidant, etc.—yet each will
select a different drama for his benefit. Thus the phantasies which undergo
conversion into symptoms are especially easy to detect in hysteria;
compulsion neuroses are essentially dominated by the reactionary formations,
or counter-seizures of the ego; what we designate as secondary elaboration in
dreams dominates paranoia in the form of delusions, etc.
In traumatic neuroses, particularly if they are caused by the horrors of war,
we are especially impressed by a selfish ego-impulse which seeks protection
and personal advantage. This in itself is not a sufficient cause for illness, but it
can favor its beginning and also feed its needs once it has been established.
This motive serves to protect the ego from the dangers whose imminence
precipitated the disease, and does not permit convalescence until the
recurrence of these dangers seems impossible, or until compensation has
been obtained for the danger that has been undergone.
But the ego betrays similar interest in the origin and maintenance of all other
neuroses. We have already said that the ego suffers the symptom to exist,
because one of its phases gratifies the egoistic tendency toward suppression.
Besides, the ending of the conflict by means of symptom development is the
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