Key Arguments

• Freud openly acknowledges that in explaining the transformation of attitudes he has “tacitly made another assumption,” namely “that there is in the psychic life—still undecided, whether in the Ego or the Id—a slideable energy, 102 itself indifferent, which can join into a qualitatively differentiated erotic or destructive impulse and increase its overall cathexis. Without the acceptance of such a slideable energy, we come to nothing.”
• He notes that “The problem of the quality of instinct impulses and its preservation in the different instinctual vicissitudes is still very opaque,” but that the sexual component instincts offer clues: “one instinct from a particular erogenous source can give its intensity to amplify a partial impulse from another source, that the satisfaction of one instinct replaces the satisfaction of another, and more like this, which must give the courage to venture assumptions of a certain kind.”
• He then proposes: “It seems plausible that this active, slideable, and indifferent energy in the Ego and in the Id comes from the narcissistic libido reserve, 105 and it is the desexualized Eros. 106 The erotic instincts seem to us even more plastic, distractable, and slideable than the destructive instincts.”
• This slideable libido “working in the service of the Pleasure Principle” serves “to prevent blockages and facilitate discharges,” and there is “a certain apathy about which way the discharge happens, so long as it undeniably happens,” a feature “characteristic of the cathexis-processes in the Id.”
• He links this to the “erotic cathexes,” where “a special apathy with respect to the object becomes developed, especially in the transferences in the analysis, that need to become realized in no matter which person,” illustrating the indifference to the specific object.
• As Otto Rank’s examples show, “neurotic acts of vengeance carried out against the incorrect people” exemplify this looseness of object-choice, summarized in the “funny anecdote, wherein one of the village’s three tailors had to be hanged 108 because the village’s only blacksmith committed a lethal crime. Punishment must be leveled, even if it does not strike the culprit.”
• Freud concludes that since this shift-energy is “desexualized libido, thus it may also be called sublimated because it would still keep the main purpose of Eros, to unite and bind, hold firm, by serving to establish that unity, by—or by the pursuit of which—the Ego distinguishes itself.”

Source Quotes

We note, however, that we, in using this other mechanism of transformation of love into hate, tacitly made another assumption, which deserves to become voiced. We have operated as if there is in the psychic life—still undecided, whether in the Ego or the Id—a slideable energy, 102 itself indifferent, which can join into a qualitatively differentiated erotic or destructive impulse and increase its overall cathexis. Without the acceptance of such a slideable energy, we come to nothing.

We have operated as if there is in the psychic life—still undecided, whether in the Ego or the Id—a slideable energy, 102 itself indifferent, which can join into a qualitatively differentiated erotic or destructive impulse and increase its overall cathexis. Without the acceptance of such a slideable energy, we come to nothing. All there is to ask is where it comes from, to whom it belongs, and what it means.

I have to offer also in the present discussion only an assumption, not proof. It seems plausible that this active, slideable, and indifferent energy in the Ego and in the Id comes from the narcissistic libido reserve, 105 and it is the desexualized Eros. 106 The erotic instincts seem to us even more plastic, distractable, and slideable than the destructive instincts. Then we can go ahead without compulsion with this slideable libido working in the service of the Pleasure Principle to prevent blockages and facilitate discharges.

106 The erotic instincts seem to us even more plastic, distractable, and slideable than the destructive instincts. Then we can go ahead without compulsion with this slideable libido working in the service of the Pleasure Principle to prevent blockages and facilitate discharges. There is a certain apathy about which way the discharge happens, so long as it undeniably happens.

Then we can go ahead without compulsion with this slideable libido working in the service of the Pleasure Principle to prevent blockages and facilitate discharges. There is a certain apathy about which way the discharge happens, so long as it undeniably happens. We know this feature as characteristic of the cathexis-processes in the Id. It is found in the erotic cathexes, whereby a special apathy with respect to the object becomes developed, especially in the transferences in the analysis, that need to become realized in no matter which person.

We know this feature as characteristic of the cathexis-processes in the Id. It is found in the erotic cathexes, whereby a special apathy with respect to the object becomes developed, especially in the transferences in the analysis, that need to become realized in no matter which person. Rank 107 has recently brought forth beautiful examples of these, neurotic acts of vengeance carried out against the incorrect people.

It is found in the erotic cathexes, whereby a special apathy with respect to the object becomes developed, especially in the transferences in the analysis, that need to become realized in no matter which person. Rank 107 has recently brought forth beautiful examples of these, neurotic acts of vengeance carried out against the incorrect people. We have to think of this behavior of the subconscious like in the funny anecdote, wherein one of the village’s three tailors had to be hanged 108 because the village’s only blacksmith committed a lethal crime.

We have to think of this behavior of the subconscious like in the funny anecdote, wherein one of the village’s three tailors had to be hanged 108 because the village’s only blacksmith committed a lethal crime. Punishment must be leveled, even if it does not strike the culprit. This same looseness we first noticed in the shift of the primary process in the dream-work.

It would seem of the Ego to insist on greater rigor in the choice of the object, just as on the way of removal. If this shift energy is desexualized libido, thus it may also be called sublimated because it would still keep the main purpose of Eros, to unite and bind, hold firm, by serving to establish that unity, by—or by the pursuit of which—the Ego distinguishes itself. Let us include the thinking processes in the broader sense of these shifts, therefore thought-work is, by the sublimation of erotic drive, defrayed.

Key Concepts

• We have operated as if there is in the psychic life—still undecided, whether in the Ego or the Id—a slideable energy, 102 itself indifferent, which can join into a qualitatively differentiated erotic or destructive impulse and increase its overall cathexis.
• Without the acceptance of such a slideable energy, we come to nothing.
• It seems plausible that this active, slideable, and indifferent energy in the Ego and in the Id comes from the narcissistic libido reserve, 105 and it is the desexualized Eros. 106
• Then we can go ahead without compulsion with this slideable libido working in the service of the Pleasure Principle to prevent blockages and facilitate discharges.
• There is a certain apathy about which way the discharge happens, so long as it undeniably happens. We know this feature as characteristic of the cathexis-processes in the Id.
• especially in the transferences in the analysis, that need to become realized in no matter which person.
• neurotic acts of vengeance carried out against the incorrect people.
• Punishment must be leveled, even if it does not strike the culprit.
• If this shift energy is desexualized libido, thus it may also be called sublimated because it would still keep the main purpose of Eros, to unite and bind, hold firm, by serving to establish that unity, by—or by the pursuit of which—the Ego distinguishes itself.

Context

Middle-late section of Chapter IV, where Freud introduces a crucial metapsychological construct—a neutral, mobile energy identified with desexualized libido—to reconcile his dual-instinct model with clinical phenomena of shifting cathexes and sublimation.