Chapter 23 Lecture 22 Aspects of development and degeneration, etiology

The libidinal function has to go through many aspects of development before it can perform normal reproductive functions, which has been mentioned above.I would now like to point out the importance of this fact in the origin of neuroses. On the principles of general pathology we may say that this development involves two dangers: namely, inhibition and regression.In other words, the course of living things has a tendency of variation, so it does not have to go through from generation to maturity and disappearing from one period to the next; some functions may stagnate forever in the initial stage, and the result is beyond the normal development. , and several stalled developments.

We can also compare these processes with other facts.It is a common occurrence in the early history of mankind that a nation wants to leave its hometown to seek a new territory, and it is inevitable that not all of them can reach the new destination.In addition to those who died from other causes, a small part of these immigrants always stopped in the middle and settled down, and the rest moved on.Or, to take a more recent analogy, you all know that the seminal glands are originally deeply placed in the abdominal cavity. under the skin at the top.In some males one or both of these organs remain in the pelvic cavity, or are permanently blocked in the inguinal canal through which it must pass, or this inguinal canal, after the passage of the seminal glands, should not have been occluded.When I was a young student, under the guidance of Bruck, I began to make scientific inquiries, the object of investigation was the origin of the dorsal nerve roots of the spinal cord of a very ancient small fish.The nerve fibers of these roots arise from large cells in the dorsal horn of the gray body, which is no longer found in other vertebrates.However, I later found that there were similar nerve cells in the gray body of the spinal ganglion of the entire dorsal root. Therefore, I concluded that the cells of this ganglion moved along the nerve root from the spinal cord.From the perspective of evolutionary development, the following fact can also be deduced: Even the nerve cells of this small fish also have many stagnant halfway along the route they pass.The defects of these metaphors, however, will soon become apparent upon closer study.We shall therefore have only to say that individual parts of the impulse of each personality may remain in the first stages of development, while other parts may reach their destination at the same time.It follows that every impulse may be regarded as a stream, which has flowed continuously from the beginning of life, and this flow may be conceived as successive movements.You are right in thinking that these concepts require further elucidation, but I am afraid you are going too far from the point.Now let's call the stagnation of a part of the impulse in its earlier stage a fixation of the impulse.

This staged development has a second danger called regression.Those that have moved forward are also prone to regress back to earlier stages of development.A more developed faculty of impulse has no choice but to turn backwards if it encounters a powerful obstacle from outside that prevents it from attaining a satisfactory purpose.We can also assume that attachment and degeneration are reciprocal causation; the more points of attachment on the road of development, the easier it is for its functions to be conquered by external obstacles and retreat to those points of attachment; in other words, the more The newly developed faculties will be less able to withstand external difficulties along the way.For example, in a migrating nation, if the majority of the people stagnate in the middle, those who have advanced the farthest will easily retreat if they encounter a strong enemy or are defeated by the enemy.Moreover, the more people stopped in the middle of their advance, the greater the danger of defeat.

In order for you to understand neuroses, it is important to keep this relationship of attachment and degeneration in mind before you can reliably study the question of the origin or etiology of neuroses, which we shall discuss shortly. For the moment we confine ourselves to degenerate problems.You have already heard a little about the development of the libido, so you can deduce that there are about two types of regression: 1. a regression to the first object of the libido, which we know is often of an incestuous nature; 2. The whole organization reverts to the early stages of development.Both occur in the tran-sference neuroses, and both play an important role in their mechanism.The first kind of degeneration is especially common in neurotic patients.If another class of narcissistic neuroses, thenarcissistic neuroses, were also discussed, more would be said about the degradation of the libido;These pathologies both bring us to conclusions about other courses of development of the libidinal functions not yet mentioned, and show us new forms of degeneration corresponding to these courses.But I think at this time you'd better pay attention to the difference between degeneration and repression, and understand the relationship between these two functions.You will remember that a psychic act which could become conscious, that is to say, belongs to the preconscious system, is repressed as unconscious and descends into the latter; this process is called repression.Another example is that subconscious mental actions are rejected by the inspection function at the threshold of consciousness, so they are not allowed to break into the preconscious system. This process is also called repression.Therefore, the concept of repression does not have to be related to sex, and you must pay special attention to this level.Repression is a purely psychic process, and may even be regarded as a process with positionality, that is to say, the spatial relations within the mind that we assume; To put it another way, it refers to the structure of a psychic apparatus in several psychic systems.

The metaphor just mentioned shows that we are using the word repression in a narrow rather than a broad sense.If we adopt the generalized usage, which refers to the process of descending from a higher stage of development to a lower stage of development, then repression will also be subordinate to degeneration; All phenomena of reversion to an earlier or lower stage.Only the direction of regression of the repression is irrelevant, for a psychic process which, before leaving the lower stages of the unconscious, stagnates and does not develop, we may also call it dynamic repression.Therefore, repression is a positional, dynamic concept, while degeneration is a purely descriptive concept.But the regressive action which we have previously associated with the persevering action refers exclusively to a phenomenon in which the libido regresses to a standstill in development, that is to say, its nature is substantially different or not at all from that of the repressive action. It doesn't matter.We cannot call the degradation of the libido a purely psychic process, nor do we know where it occupies the psychic mechanism; The body factor is still the most significant.

This kind of discussion often makes people feel boring; therefore, we can cite clinical examples in order to have a clearer impression.You know the transference neuroses, the hysterical and the obsessional neuroses.In hysteria the libido often regresses chiefly to kin as sexual objects, but seldom, or not at all, regresses to earlier stages of sexual organization.The mechanism of hysteria is therefore dominated by repression.If I supplement my prior knowledge of this neurosis with conjectures, I may describe the situation as follows: Partial impulses under the dominion of the genital zone have united, but the result of this union is met with The resistance of the preconscious system.The reproductive tissue is therefore applicable to the subconscious, but not to the preconscious, and the rejection of the reproductive tissue by the preconscious results in a state similar to that before the dominance of the genital area.In practice, however, it is different.Of these two regressions of the libido, the regression of the one to the preceding stage of the sexual organization is the more surprising.Since this type of regression is not found in hysteria, and since our whole conception of neuroses is too much influenced by current research on hysteria, we admit that the importance of the degradation of the libido is far behind that of repression.In the future, in addition to hysteria and obsessive-compulsive neurosis, we may add other kinds of neuroses such as narcissistic neuroses to the discussion, our point of view may be further expanded and modified.

As far as obsessive-compulsive neuroses are concerned, the stage of the libido's reversion to the formerly abusive, anal tissue is indeed one of the most obvious factors and determines the manner in which the symptoms should take place.Here the loving impulse must disguise itself as the sadistic impulse. The obsessive thought of "I'm going to murder you" when it's left out with certain additives that cannot be omitted means "I'm going to enjoy your love."If you consider again that this impulse returns to its original main object, and that it is satisfied only by those who are closest and dearest, you can imagine the horrors these obsessions arouse in the patient, and how they affect him. Consciousness cannot explain it.Repression, however, also has a considerable place in the mechanism of this neurosis, and this place cannot be explained by a momentary observation.Regression of the libido, without repression, must not cause neurosis, but is only sufficient to produce a perversion.From this you will see that repression is the most important feature of neuroses.Perhaps I shall have an opportunity to tell you about the mechanism of perversion phenomena, and then you will see that these phenomena are not as simple as we theoretically suppose.

If you regard this account of the obsession and regression of the libido as a preliminary study of the etiology of neuropathy, you may immediately accept this account.All I have given you on this subject is this fragment of knowledge: namely, that people are prone to neurosis if they do not have the possibility of satisfying their libido—that is why we say that people become diseased by being “deprived”—and that Their symptoms are substitutes for lost satisfaction.This does not mean, of course, that the deprivation of any kind of libidinal gratification can make a person neurotic, but only that the factor of deprivation is evident in all neuroses which have been studied.Therefore, this sentence cannot be reversed.Presumably you must know the meaning of this sentence. It is not intended to reveal all the secrets of neuropathy etiology, but it is used to emphasize an important and indispensable condition.

Now, in order to further discuss this proposition, we still don’t know whether we should start from the nature of the deprivation or from the special character of the deprived.Deprivation is not an all-encompassing factor that can absolutely cause disease. If it is to cause disease, what is deprived must be exactly the only possible way of satisfaction that person desires.Roughly speaking, there are many ways in which one can tolerate a lack of libidinal gratification without becoming ill.We also know of many people who can control their desires without harm; they either cannot live happily, or suffer from unsatisfied expectations, but they never get sick from them.We are therefore compelled to conclude that the decisive impulse is extraordinarily elastic, if we may use the word elastic.This impulse may come in to take the place of another, and if this one does not actually satisfy, the other often provides sufficient satisfaction.Their relationship to each other is like a set of water pipes filled with liquid, interconnected into a network, although they are all under the control of reproductive desire, which is a controlled condition that is not easy to imagine.Moreover, the partial instincts of sex, and the unified sexual impulse containing them, are capable of exchanging objects for each other—in other words, for an easily available object; , of course has a powerful opposite effect on the outcome of the deprivation.One of these processes of protection against disease occupies a special place of importance in the development of culture.Because of this process, the sexual impulse is able to abandon its former aim of partial-impulsive gratification or reproductive gratification, and adopt a new aim--though this new aim is related in origin to the first, But no longer considered sexual, it must be called social in nature.This process is called sublimation, because it is through this effect that we can elevate social ends above sexual or absolutely egoistic ends.Incidentally, sublimation is only a special case of the relation of sexual impulses to other nonsexual impulses.About this layer, we will talk about it in the future.

If you think that there are so many ways of enduring sexual dissatisfaction, then the deprivation of sexual satisfaction is a minor factor.But again, it still retains its ability to cause disease.Although there are many ways to deal with sexual dissatisfaction, they are often not enough.There is a limit to how much libido dissatisfaction the average person can bear.Not all of us can fully preserve the flexibility and freedom of the libido; needless to say, many people have very little sublimation ability, and even if there is sublimation, they can only vent a part of the libido.Among these limitations, flexibility with respect to the libido is obviously of particular importance, since the number of ends and objects available to a person is very limited.You will remember that the imperfect development of the libido can lead it to attach itself to earlier sexual organizations and to the selection of objects which are mostly practically unsatisfactory, and these attachments are very extensive and sometimes numerous; Bidotal attachment is a second powerful factor, which together with sexual dissatisfaction is the cause of neurosis.We can generalize this layer as follows: in the causes of neurosis, libidinal attachment represents an inner cause, while sexual deprivation represents an external accidental cause.

I would like to take this opportunity to advise you not to take sides on pointless debates.In scientific matters, people often take one side of the truth as the whole truth, and then doubt the other parts of the truth because of this element of truth.Several parts of the psychoanalytic movement have been so dissociated; there are those who admit only the egoic impulses and deny the sexual ones; others who see only the influence of real business in life and ignore the past life of the individual, and so on. , need not be exhaustive.There is also an unresolved dilemma: namely, is the neurosis internal or external? ——In other words, is neurosis the inevitable result of a certain body constitution, or is it the product of a certain "traumatic" traumatic experience in one's life?More narrowly, do neuroses arise from libidinal attachments and sexual structures, or from the pressure of sexual deprivation?The absurdity of this question seems to be exactly the same as that of the following question, that is, is the child born from the father's act of reproduction, or from the mother's conception?You may think that both conditions are indispensable.The conditions of neurosis are quite similar, though different.From the point of view of causes, neuroses can be arranged in a continuous series in which their two factors—the sexual constitution and the event of experience, or, if you prefer, libidinal Obsession and sexual deprivation—if one predominates, the other recedes proportionally.At one end of the series, there are these extreme examples: people whose libido develops very differently from ordinary people, so that no matter what happens or experiences, or how comfortable life is, they always end up getting sick.At the other end of the series, there are other extreme examples-if life does not burden them in one way or another, they will never get sick.In the intermediate cases, the factors of inclination, namely, the sexual structure and the harmful experience of life are mixed and proportional to each other.If they do not have certain experiences, their sexual constitution is not sufficient to produce neurosis; if their libido is of a different constitution, the changes of life are not sufficient to make them diseased.In this series, I may focus on the structural element of sex, but it also depends on where exactly you draw the line for neuroticism. Here I want you to know that this series can be named as the complementary series, and I also want to tell you in advance that there will be such complementary systems in other aspects. The libido is often obsessed with a special way out and a special object, which is called the "adhesiveness" of the libido.This attachment seems to be an independent factor, which varies from person to person, its determining conditions are not fully understood, but its importance in the etiology of neurosis is beyond doubt.At the same time, they are also very closely related to each other.Under many conditions in normal people, the libido can also have a similar adhesion. The reason is not yet known.Before the birth of psychoanalysis, some people, such as Biner, found that in the memories of these people, they often clearly remembered all the impressions of abnormal instinctive tendencies or object choices in childhood. .It is often difficult to explain why this impression has such a high appeal to the libido.I would like to give an example of a man I personally observed.The man is now indifferent to women's genitals and to all other temptations, but only a certain pattern of shod feet arouses in him an irrepressible sexual desire; he remembers an incident at the age of six which caused his Bido's attachment, when he was sitting on the stool next to the nanny, the nanny taught him to read English.She is an ordinary old woman, with blue and wet eyes, and a flat nose. She was injured on one foot that day, and she was wearing woolen slippers. without revealing.Later, in adolescence, after he secretly tried normal sexual activities, only the lean and powerful feet that resembled the nurse were his sexual objects; if there was any other feature that reminded him of the British nurse, he more attractive.However, this libidinal attachment is not enough to make him a neurotic, it just makes him a pervert.We say that he became a foot-fetichist.From this, you can see that the excessive and immature attachment of the libido, although an indispensable condition of neurosis, has its influence far beyond the scope of neurosis; Cause disease, which is the same as the sexual deprivation mentioned above. Thus, the question of the origin of neuroses seems to be more complicated.In fact, from the research of psychoanalysis, we have seen a new factor, which has not been mentioned in the etiology, but is most likely to show its existence in people who lose their health due to sudden neurosis.These people often show symptoms of opposite desires or spiritual conflicts.One part of his personality embraces certain desires, the other part rebels against them.All neuroses must have such a contradiction.This also doesn't seem to be anything special; you know we all have conflicts in our spiritual lives that need to be resolved.So it seems that some special conditions have to be fulfilled before this contradiction can lead to disease; it may now be asked what are these conditions?What forces in the mind participate in these pathogenic contradictions?And what is the relationship between contradictions and other pathogenic factors? I hope to be able to give some satisfactory, if not terse, answers to these questions.The contradiction arises from sexual deprivation, since the libido is not satisfied and has to seek other outlets and objects.These outlets and objects, however, can resent a part of the personality, and new satisfactions cannot be achieved because of the situation.This is the starting point of the formation of symptoms, which will be discussed later.Since sexual desire is forbidden, it takes a roundabout way to advance, and to break through this resistance, it has to go through various disguises.The so-called detour refers to the formation of symptoms; symptoms are new or replacement gratifications caused by sexual deprivation. The meaning of spiritual contradiction can be expressed in another way, which is: external deprivation must be supplemented by internal deprivation before it can become a disease.If the two go hand in hand, then external deprivation and internal deprivation must be related to different outlets and different objects; external deprivation cancels the first possibility of satisfaction, while internal deprivation cancels the other. One possibility, it is this second possibility that has become the crux of the spiritual contradiction.I also have a purpose in stating this; that is, in the early stages of human development, internal obstacles were originally caused by external obstacles in reality. But where, then, does the force required to prohibit sexuality, or another set of contradictions that cause disease, come from?Broadly speaking, we may say that they are nonsexual instincts, which may be summed up under the term ego-instincts.The analysis of the transference neuroses did not originally offer us sufficient opportunity for further study of these instincts; at best, the nature of these instincts was only glimpsed from the analysis of the patient's resistance.Therefore, the pathogenic contradiction is the contradiction between ego instinct and sexual instinct.In a series of cases there also seems to be a contradiction between the different pure sexual impulses; but between the two sexual impulses which produce the contradiction there will always be one which the ego approves and the other which the ego rebels against.At the end of the day, it's still the same thing.So we can still call it a contradiction between ego and sex. After psychoanalysis believed that the psychological process is a manifestation of sexual instinct, scholars have repeatedly protested angrily, thinking that in addition to sexual instinct and interest in spiritual life, there must be other instincts and interests, and that we cannot All events are traceable to sex; and so on.In fact, as long as a person can agree with the opponent, that is also a real happiness.Psychoanalysis has never forgotten the existence of nonsexual instincts; psychoanalysis itself is founded on a strict distinction between sexual and ego instincts; however it may be opposed, it insists that neuroses do not originate in sex, but in neuroses. Contradictions about self and sexuality.Although it studies the place played by the sexual instinct in disease and in ordinary life, it does not in any way attempt to deny the existence or importance of the ego instinct.The difference is that psychoanalysis makes the study of the sexual instincts its first priority, because these instincts are the easiest to study in the transference neuroses, and because psychoanalysis has to study events that are neglected. We cannot therefore say that psychoanalysis ignores all nonsexual parts of the personality.From the perspective of the distinction between ego and sex, it is obvious that the important development of ego instinct cannot but depend on the development of libido, and it also has a considerable influence on the development of libido.We really do not know as much about ego development as we do about libidinal development, because only the study of narcissistic neuroses gives us any hope of understanding the structure of the ego.But Ferenczi, referring to his book "Contributions to Psycho-Analysis", Chapter 8, p. 181, the English version translated by Jones also tried to theoretically determine several stages of ego development. ; we have at least two points on which we can use as a stable basis for further study of this development.We by no means imagine that a man's libidinal interests are at first in conflict with those of self-preservation; in fact, at every stage the ego has to try to accommodate itself by trying to harmonize with a corresponding stage of the sexual organization.There may be a prescribed program for the duration of the periods of libidinal development; but this program may also be influenced by the development of the ego.We may also assume a parallel or correlation between the phases of these two developments, that of the ego and of the libido; a breakdown of this correlation can become a causative factor.Of particular importance is the following question: what attitude will the ego take if the libido is powerfully attached to an earlier stage of development?Perhaps it permits this attachment, and thus produces a perverted or infantile phenomenon; but it may also not want it to be attached to the libido, with the result that if the libido has an attachment, the ego must have a repressed one. action. We can therefore conclude that the third factor in the pathogenesis of neurosis, the susceptibility to conflict, has exactly the same relation to the development of the ego as it does to the development of the libido; The insight of cause is enlarged.The first is the most common condition of sexual deprivation, the second is the obsession of the libido which forces the sexual neuroses into special paths, the third is the development of the ego which rejects the specific impulses of the libido and thus produces susceptibility to paradox.Therefore, this fact is not so mysterious and inexplicable as you may suppose.Our work in this direction, however, is not yet complete; for many new facts are to be added, and some known events to be further analysed. In order to illustrate the influence of ego-development on the tendency to contradictory and thus on neurosis, I may give the following example, which, though entirely imaginary, is not necessarily trivial.I might give it the title of a Nestro burlesque: On the Ground-floor and in the Mansion.Suppose there is a servant who lives downstairs and a wealthy master who lives upstairs.They both have children, and we may assume that the master allows his little girl and the servant's little girl to play freely without supervision: their play can easily become "naughty," that is, with sexual undertones; they pretend to be the father. And the mother, peeping at each other's movements of urinating, defecating or changing clothes, and stimulating each other's reproductive organs.The servant's daughter may dress up as a seductive woman, because although she is only five or six years old, she already knows a lot about sexual events.These acts of play, though brief, were sufficient to arouse the sexual excitement of the two children, and after the play ceased there were years of masturbation.Although their experience is the same, the results are very different.The servant's daughter may continue to masturbate until she begins to menstruate, then there should be no difficulty in stopping masturbation; after a few years, she will find a lover and perhaps have a child; Became a famous actress, and spent the rest of her life as an aristocratic wife.Maybe she didn't have such a prominent success in her life, but in any case, she will never suffer from immature sexual activities. Not only is she not crazy, but she can live comfortably.As for the master's daughter, it was very different.As a child, she was quick to feel guilty; after a while she struggled to get rid of the gratification of masturbation, but she was still unhappy.When I grow up and know a little about sexual intercourse, I can't help but have nameless terror. I hope it's best to never know.Maybe she will feel the irresistible urge to masturbate again, but she will not tell others.When she can marry, a sudden onset of neurosis turns her against marriage and the enjoyment of life.If we understand the course of this neurosis analytically, we will find that this well-educated, intelligent, ideal woman has completely repressed her sexual desires; On some evil experiences shared. The two women, although having the same experience, have different outcomes because of a development of the ego in the one that the other lacks.As far as the servant's daughter is concerned, sexual activity seems natural and harmless, both in her infancy and in her adulthood.The master's daughter, being well educated, adopts the standard of her education.Her ego, thus stimulated, formed an ideal of femininity and asceticism, incompatible with the sexual act; and her intellectual training made her despise her feminine duties.This moral and intellectual development of her ego contradicts her sexual demands. There is another aspect of the development of the libido which I would like to explore today, not only because it expands the field of vision, but also because it proves that the strict and incomprehensible boundary we draw between the ego-instinct and the sex-instinct is There is quite a reason.In discussing the development of the ego and libido now, special attention has to be paid to an aspect which has been neglected.To be honest, both are due to genetics, and both are the epitome of the evolution of all human beings in ancient and prehistoric times.The origin of this phylogenetic history, so far as the development of the libido is concerned, is, I think, obvious.Just imagine that the genitals of some animals are closely related to the mouth, that there is no boundary between the genitals and the excretory organs of some animals, and that the genitals of some animals are part of their locomotor organs; Bersch's famous book describes these facts very interestingly, and can be used for reference. refer to.Animals, so to speak, have deep-seated perversions because of the form of their sexual organization.In man, this aspect of phylogenetic history is less pronounced, since essentially hereditary properties are all reacquired by the individual, perhaps because the conditions which originally gave rise to this acquisition are still present and do not exist. affect each individual.I thought they had produced a new reaction, and now a tendency.In addition, the established development path of each individual can also be changed due to external impressions.But the force which compelled man to this development, and which is now maintained, is known to us; this is the deprivation which reality demands; or, if we want to give it a real name, necessity. , or the struggle for survival.Necessity is a stern matron who teaches us many things.Neurotics are the evil result of this severity; no education is free from this danger.The theory that evolution is driven by the struggle for existence need not diminish the importance of "inner evolutionary tendencies", if such tendencies exist. It is worth noting that the sexual instinct and the instinct of self-preservation behave differently when they meet the necessities of real life.The instinct of self-preservation, and all instincts belonging to the ego, are easier to control, early accept the domination of necessity, and adapt their development to the will of reality.This is understandable, since unless they obey the will of "reality," they cannot obtain the objects they need, without which the individual cannot escape death.As for the sexual instincts, they are more difficult to control; for they never feel the want of an object.They seem to be attached to other physiological functions parasitically, and at the same time they can seek satisfaction in themselves, so they are not initially affected by the education of "real" necessity; Retain this stubbornness, or "irrationality," in one direction or another throughout life, independent of outside influence.Moreover, the educability of a young man comes to an end probably at the time of sexual growth.Educators know this, and they know how to deal with it; but they may accept the results of psychoanalysis and shift the focus of their education to the infancy from suckling onwards.The child is often a complete creature at the age of four or five, and it is only later that the endowed talents gradually emerge. If we are to fully understand the meaning of the two sets of instincts, we have to digress a little and include one of those aspects which can be regarded as economic; part.We may ask the following question: Is there a main purpose in the work of the psychic apparatus?Our answer is that its purpose is to seek pleasure.Our whole mental activity seems to be determined to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and is automatically regulated by the pleasure-principle.What we most want to know is what conditions lead to pleasure and which lead to pain, but this knowledge is what we lack.We can only conjecture that a reduction, reduction or elimination of the stimulus in the psychic apparatus is sufficient to induce pleasure, and an increase in the stimulus is sufficient to induce pain.There can be no doubt, considering that the most intense pleasure possible to human beings is that of sexual intercourse.Because the course of this pleasure depends on the distribution of psychological excitement and energy weight, we call this consideration economical.It seems that we can use other more common words to describe the actions of the mental organs besides focusing on the pursuit of pleasure.At that time, we can say that the psychic organ is used to control or release the stimulus quantity or pure energy superimposed on itself.The development of the sexual instinct is evident from the beginning to the end with the aim of gratification; this function can be preserved forever.The same is true of the ego-instinct at first; but under the influence of necessity, it immediately knows to substitute another principle for the pleasure-principle.They regard the work of avoiding pain as equally important as the work of pursuing pleasure; so the ego knows that sometimes it has to forego immediate gratification, the enjoyment of delayed gratification, endure some pains, and even have to give up a source of pleasure.After receiving this kind of training, the ego becomes "reasonable", no longer controlled by the pleasure principle, but obeys the reality-principle.这个唯实原则归根结蒂也是在追求快乐——不过所追求的是一种延缓的，缩小的快乐，因为和现实相适应，所以不易消失。 由唯乐原则过渡到唯实原则，乃是自我发展中的一个最重要的进步。我们已知道性本能后来也随着勉强地经过这个阶段；不久还可以知道人的性生活的满足仅因为有了外界现实的这种微弱的基础，将会有何种结果。现在在结论中还可提出关于本问题的一句话。假使人类的自我有和里比多相类似的进化，那么你们如果听说自我也有所谓退化作用，就不至于惊异了，而且还会希望知道自我回复到发展的初期阶段在神经病中究竟能占何种地位。