Freud (V1.6) “Observations of a Severe Case of Hemi-Anaesthesia in a Hysterical Male” in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, notes and quotes

 

by Corry Shores

 

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[Sigmund Freud, entry directory]

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[The following is not summary. It simply catalogs particular parts of the text that I take note of, with a brief summary of all these notes. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive all my various mistakes. Section divisions are my own and do not reflect partitions in the text.]

 

 

 

Notes and Quotes from

 

Sigmund Freud

 

Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works

 

Volume 1

1886-1889

Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts

 

6

“Observations of a Severe Case of Hemi-Anaesthesia in a Hysterical Male”

(1886)

 

 

 

 

Very brief summary of the notes:

Hysterical patients can have (anaesthetic) parts of their body that provide absolutely no sensation whatsoever, while also having “hysterogenic zones” that are highly oversensitive and when touched even slightly can trigger a hysterical episode. Overall, this account of the patient’s anaesthesia and hyperaesthesia gives us medical descriptions that resonate with Deleuze’s discussions of the body without organs in the context of hysteria; for, we see a high variability in the ways that the parts of the body handle sensations and operate in conjunction with one another, with odd places on the body becoming something like temporary, provisional organs (the “hysterogenic zones”).

 

 

 

Brief summary of the notes (collecting those below):

(6.1) Editor’s note: This text is mostly about the physiological symptomology of hysteria from Charcot’s perspective. (6.2) Freud will discuss a case of male hysteria where the physiological symptoms are very pronounced and obvious. The patient’s symptoms were brought on by a traumatic event (being attacked by his brother who tried to kill him with a knife), and he suffers acute hemi-anaesthesia (the loss of sensation in one side of the body). While this side of the body cannot provide sensations, not even kinaesthetic ones when moving, the patient also has “hysterogenic zones” (which are supersensitive parts of the body that when touched even slightly can provoke a hysterical attack.) There is also variability in these conditions. Using electricity, Freud was able to make a part of the anaesthic zone become sensitive and also thereby to cause variability in other parts of the body: “Thus, in a test for electrical sensitivity, contrary to my intention, I made a piece of skin at the left elbow sensitive; and repeated tests showed that the extent of the painful zones on the trunk and the disturbances of the sense of vision oscillated in their intensity.” (We note that much of the description Freud gives here of the patient’s physiological symptomology is reminiscent of what Deleuze says about the “body without organs” in the “Hysteria” chapter of his Francis Bacon book.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

6.1

[The Limited Focus of This Text on the Topic of Psychological Factors Involved in Hysteria]

 

6.2

[Anaesthesia and Hysterogenic Zones in Hysterical Patients]

 

Text Information

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

Text Information

 

BEOBACHTUNG EINER HOCHGRADIGEN HEMI-ANÄTHESIE BEI EINEM HYSTERISCHEN MANNE

(a) German Edition:

1886 Wien. med. Wschr., 36 (49), 1633-38. (December 4.)

This paper seems never to have been reprinted. The present translation, by James Strachey, is the first into English. It was apparently intended that this should be the first of a series of papers, since there is a superscription which reads ‘Beiträge zur Kasuistik der Hysterie, I’ (Contributions to the Clinical Study of Hysteria, I). But the series was not continued.

(24)

 

 

 

Summary

 

6.1

[The Limited Focus of This Text on the Topic of Psychological Factors Involved in Hysteria]

 

[Editor’s note: This text is mostly about the physiological symptomology of hysteria from Charcot’s perspective.]

 

[ditto] [Recall from “Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin” that Freud had been studying at the Hospice de la Salpêtrière in Paris under Jean-Martin Charcot, who was using hypnotism and other means to greatly advance our knowledge of the neurosis hysteria.]

The greater part of the paper, it will be seen, is concerned with the physical phenomena of hysteria, on the lines characteristic of Charcot's attitude to the condition. There are only some very slight indications of an interest in psychological factors.

(23)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.2

[Anaesthesia and Hysterogenic Zones in Hysterical Patients]

 

[Freud will discuss a case of male hysteria where the physiological symptoms are very pronounced and obvious. The patient’s symptoms were brought on by a traumatic event (being attacked by his brother who tried to kill him with a knife), and he suffers acute hemi-anaesthesia (the loss of sensation in one side of the body). While this side of the body cannot provide sensations, not even kinaesthetic ones when moving, the patient also has “hysterogenic zones” (which are supersensitive parts of the body that when touched even slightly can provoke a hysterical attack.) There is also variability in these conditions. Using electricity, Freud was able to make a part of the anaesthic zone become sensitive and also thereby to cause variability in other parts of the body: “Thus, in a test for electrical sensitivity, contrary to my intention, I made a piece of skin at the left elbow sensitive; and repeated tests showed that the extent of the painful zones on the trunk and the disturbances of the sense of vision oscillated in their intensity.”  (We note that much of the description Freud gives here of the patient’s physiological symptomology is reminiscent of what Deleuze says about the “body without organs” in the “Hysteria” chapter of his Francis Bacon book.)]

 

[ditto]

GENTLEMEN, – When, on October 15, I had the honour of claiming your attention to a short report on Charcot’s recent work in the field of male hysteria, I was challenged by my respected teacher, Hofrat Professor Meynert, to present before the society some cases in which the somatic indications of hysteria – the ‘hysterical stigmata’ by which Charcot characterizes this neurosis – could be observed in a clearly marked form. I am meeting this challenge to-day – insufficiently, it is true, but so far as the clinical material at my disposal permits – by presenting before you a hysterical man, who exhibits the symptom of hemi-anaesthesia to what may almost be described as the highest degree.

(25)

The patient is a 29-year-old engraver, August P.

(25)

His present illness dates back for some three years. At that time he fell into a dispute with his dissolute brother, who refused to pay him back a sum of money he had lent him. His brother threatened to stab him and ran at him with a knife. This threw the patient into indescribable fear; he felt a ringing in his head as though it was going to burst; he hurried home without being able to tell how he got there, and fell to the ground unconscious in front of his do0r. It was reported afterwards that for two hours he had the most violent spasms and had spoken during them of the scene with his brother. When he woke up, he felt very feeble; during the next six weeks he suffered from violent left-sided headaches and intra-cranial pressure. The feeling in the left half of his body seemed to him altered, and his eyes got easily tired at his work, which he soon took up again. With a few oscillations, his condition remained like this for three years, until, seven weeks ago, a fresh agitation brought on a change for the worse. The patient was accused by a woman of a theft, | had violent palpitations, was so depressed for about a fortnight that he thought of suicide, and at the same time a fairly severe tremor set in in his left extremities. The left half of his body felt as though it had been affected by a slight stroke; his eyes became very weak and often made him see everything grey; his sleep was interrupted by terrifying apparitions and by dreams in which he thought he was falling from a great height; pains started in the left side of his throat, in his left groin, in the sacral region and in other areas; his stomach was often ‘as though it was blown out’, and he found himself obliged to stop working. A further worsening of all these symptoms dates from the last week. In addition, the patient is subject to violent pains in his left knee and his left sole if he walks for some time; he has a peculiar feeling in his throat as though his tongue was fastened up, he has frequent singing in his ears, and more of the same sort. His memory is impaired for his experiences during his illness, but is good for earlier events. The attacks of convulsions have been repeated from six to nine times during the three years; but most of them were very slight; only one attack at night last August was accompanied by fairly severe ‘shaking’.

(26-27)

The examination of his internal organs reveals nothing pathological apart from dull cardiac sounds. If I press on the point of exit of the supraorbital, infra-orbital or mental nerves on the left side, the patient turns his head with an expression of severe pain. There is therefore, we might suppose, a neuralgic change in the left trigeminal. The cranial vault too is very susceptible to percussion in its left half. The skin of the left half of the head behaves, however, quite differently to our expectation: it is completely insensitive to stimuli of any kind. I can prick it, pinch it, twist the lobe of the ear between my fingers, without the patient even noticing the touch. Here, then, there is a very high degree of anaesthesia; but this affects not merely the skin but also the mucous membranes, as I will show you in the case of the patient’s lips and tongue. If I insert a small roll of paper into his left external auditory meatus and then through his left nostril, no reaction is produced. I now repeat the experiment on the right side and show that there the patient’s sensibility is normal. In accordance with the anaesthesia, the sensory reflexes, too, are abolished or reduced. Thus I can introduce my finger and touch all the pharyngeal tissues on the left side without the result being retching; the pharyngeal reflexes on the right side are, however, also reduced; only when I reach the epiglottis on the right side is there a reaction. Touching the | left conjunctiva palpebrarum and bulbi produces scarcely any closure of the lids; on the other hand, the corneal reflex is present, though very considerably reduced. Incidentally, the conjunctival and corneal reflexes on the right side are also reduced, though only to a lesser degree; and this behaviour of the reflexes is enough to enable me to conclude that the disturbances of vision need not be limited to the one (left) eye. And in fact, when I examined the patient for the first time, he exhibited in both eyes the peculiar polyopia monocularis of hysterical patients and disturbances of the colour-sense. With his right eye he recognized all the colours except violet, which he named as grey; with his left eye he recognized only a light red and yellow, while he regarded all the other colours as grey if they were light and black if they were dark. Dr. Konigstein was kind enough to submit the patient’s eyes to a thorough examination and will himself report later on his findings. [See p. 24 above.] Turning to the other sense organs, smell and taste are entirely lost on the left side. Only hearing has been spared by the cerebral hemi-anaesthesia. It will be recalled that the efficiency of his right ear has been seriously impaired since an accident to the patient at the age of eight; his left ear is the better one; the reduction in hearing present in it is (according to a kind communication from Professor Gruber) sufficiently explained by a visible material affection of the tympanic membrane.

If we now proceed to an examination of the trunk and extremities, here again we find an absolute anaesthesia, in the first place in the left arm. As you see, I can push a pointed needle through a fold of the skin without the patient reacting against it. The deep parts – muscles, ligaments, joints – must also be insensitive to an equally high degree, since I can twist the wrist-joint and stretch the ligaments without provoking any feeling in the patient. It tallies with this anaesthesia of the deep parts that the patient, if his eyes are bandaged, also has no notion of the position of his left arm in space or of any movement that I perform with it. I bandage his eyes and then ask him what I have done with his left hand. He cannot tell. I tell him to take hold of his left thumb, elbow, shoulder, with his right hand. He feels about in the air, will perhaps take my hand, which I offer him, for his own, and then admits that he does not know whose hand he has hold of.

It must be especially interesting to find out whether the patient is able to find the parts of the left half of his face. One would suppose that this would offer him no difficulties, since, after all, the left half of his face is, so to speak, firmly cemented to the intact right half. But experiment shows the contrary. The patient | misses his aim at his left eye, the lobe of his left ear, and so on; indeed he seems to find his way about worse in groping with his right hand for the anaesthetic parts of his face than if he were touching a part of someone else’s body. The blame for this is not a disorder in his right hand, which he is using for feeling about, for you can see with what certainty and speed he finds the spot when I tell him to touch places in the right half of his face.

(28-29)

The same anaesthesia is present in his trunk and left leg. We observe there that the loss of sensation has its limit at the midline or extends a trace beyond it.

Special interest seems to me to lie in the analysis of the disturbances of movement which the patient exhibits in his anaesthetic limbs. I believe that these disturbances of movement are to be ascribed wholly and solely to the anaesthesia. There is certainly no paralysis – of his left arm, for instance. A paralysed arm either falls limply down or is held rigid by contractures in forced positions. Here it is otherwise. If I bandage the patient’s eyes, his left arm remains in the position it had taken up before. The disturbances of mobility are changeable and depend on several conditions. At first, those of you who noticed how the patient undressed himself with both hands and how he closed his left nostril with the fingers of his left hand, will not have formed an impression of any serious disturbance of movement. On closer observation it will be found that the left arm, and in particular the fingers, are moved more slowly and with less skill, as though they are stiff, and with a slight tremor. But every movement, even the most complicated, is performed and this is always so if the patient's attention is diverted from the organs of movement and directed solely to the aim of the movement. It is quite otherwise if I tell him to carry out separate movements with his left arm without any remoter aim – for instance, to bend his arm at the elbow-joint while he follows the movement with his eyes. In that case his left arm appears much more inhibited than before, the movement is performed very slowly, incompletely, in separate stages, as though there were a great resistance to be overcome, and is accompanied by a lively tremor. The movements of the fingers are extraordinarily weak in these circumstances. A third kind of disturbance of movement, and the severest, is exhibited, finally, if he is expected to carry out separate movements with closed eyes. Something results, to be sure, with the limb which is absolutely anaesthetic, for, as you see, the motor innervation is independent of any sensory | moved; this movement, however, is minimal, not in any way directed to a particular segment, and not determinable in its direction by the patient. Do not assume, however, that this last kind of disturbance of movement is a necessary consequence of anaesthesia; precisely in this respect far-reaching individual differences are to be found. We have observed anaesthetic patients at the Salpêtrière who, if their eyes were closed, retained a much more far-reaching control over a limb that was lost to consciousness.

(29-30)

The same influence of diverted attention and of looking applies to the left leg. For a good hour to-day the patient walked along the streets with me at a rapid pace, without looking at his feet as he walked. And all I could notice was that he put his left foot down turning it rather outwards and that he often dragged it along the ground. But if I order him to walk, then he has to follow every movement of his anaesthetic leg with his eyes, and the movement occurs slowly and uncertainly and tires him very soon. Finally, with his eyes closed he walks altogether uncertainly, and he pushes himself along with both feet staying on the ground, as one of us would do in the dark on unknown territory. He also has great difficulty in remaining upright on his left leg only; if he shuts his eyes in that position, he immediately falls down.

I will go on to describe the behaviour of his reflexes. They are in general brisker than the normal, and moreover show little consistency with one another. The triceps and flexor reflexes are decidedly brisker in the right, non-anaesthetic extremity. The patellar reflex seems brisker on the left; the Achilles tendon reflex is equal on both sides. It is also possible to elicit a slight patellar response which is more clearly observable on the right. The cremasteric reflexes are absent; on the other hand the abdominal reflexes are brisk, and the left one immensely increased, so that the lightest stroking of an area of the abdominal skin provokes a maximal contraction of the left rectus abdominis.

In accordance with a hysterical herni-anaesthesia, our patient exhibits, both spontaneously and on pressure, painful areas on what is otherwise the insensitive side of his body – what are known as ‘hysterogenic zones’, though in this case their con-| nection with the provoking of attacks is not marked. Thus the trigeminal nerve, whose terminal branches, as I showed you earlier, are sensitive to pressure, is the seat of a hysterogenic zone of this kind; also a narrow area in the left medial cervical fossa, a broader strip in the left wall of the thorax (where the skin too is still sensitive), the lumbar portion of the spine and the middle portion of the ossacrum (the skin is sensitive over the former of these as well). Finally, the left spermatic cord is very sensitive to pain, and this zone is continued along the course of the spermatic cord into the abdominal cavity to the area which in women is so often the site of ‘ovaralgia’.

(30-31)

I must add two remarks relating to deviations of our case from the typical picture of hysterical hemi-anaesthesia. The first is that the right side of the patient's body is also not free from anaesthesia, though this is not of a high degree and seems to affect only the skin. Thus there is a zone of reduced sensitivity to pain (and feeling of temperature) over the dome of the right shoulder, another passes in a band round the peripheral end of the lower arm; the right leg is hypaesthetic on the outer side of the thigh and on the back of the calf.

A second remark relates to the fact that the hemi-anaesthesia in our patient exhibits very clearly the characteristic of instability. Thus, in a test for electrical sensitivity, contrary to my intention, I made a piece of skin at the left elbow sensitive; and repeated tests showed that the extent of the painful zones on the trunk and the disturbances of the sense of vision oscillated in their intensity. It is on this instability of the disturbance of sensitivity that I found my hope of being able to restore the patient in a short time to normal sensitivity.

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Freud, Sigmund. “Observations of a Severe Case of Hemi-Anaesthesia in a Hysterical Male (1886).” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, Vol. 1, (1886–1899): Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts, edited and translated by James Strachey, 23–31. London: Hogarth, 1966.

 

.

 

 

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Freud (V1.3) “Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin” in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, notes and quotes

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Psychoanalysis, entry directory]

[Sigmund Freud, entry directory]

[Freud, Complete Vol.1, entry directory]

 

[The following is not summary. It simply catalogs particular parts of the text that I take note of, with a brief summary of all these notes. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive all my various mistakes. Section divisions are my own and do not reflect partitions in the text.]

 

 

 

Notes and Quotes from

 

Sigmund Freud

 

Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works

 

Volume 1

(1886-1889)

Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts

3

“Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin”

(1956 [1886])

 

 

 

 

 

Very brief summary of these notes:

Freud’s text, “Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin,” provides an account of his studies at the Hospice de la Salpêtrière in Paris under Jean-Martin Charcot, who was using hypnotism and other means to greatly advance our knowledge of the neurosis hysteria. Freud was impressed by how Charcot was dealing with illnesses that have somatic symptoms but no obvious somatic causes. In other words, they seem more to be diseases of the psyche than strictly of the body. As a result of these studies, Freud’s research interests turned away from neuroanatomy toward psychopathology.

 

 

 

Brief summary of these notes (collecting those below):

(3.1) Editor’s Note: Freud began as a medical student interested in neuroanatomy. In 1885-1886, he studied abroad, in France, with a grant from his school, Vienna University. During his intellectual explorations, especially under the influence of Jean-Martin Charcot, Freud’s interests change from neurology to psychopathology. This text is important for giving us insight into that fateful turn in the history of human culture. (3.2) Freud used his traveling grant to study neuropathology at the Hospice de la Salpêtrière. One thing that attracted him about this school was Jean-Martin Charcot, who was “inclined to study rare and strange material.” Freud’s initial research interests were “anatomical problems” (namely,  “the secondary atrophies and degenerations that follow on affections of the brain in children.”) However, Freud found that the laboratory for these studies was inadequate, so he switched to studying  something else (namely, “the relations of the nuclei of the posterior column in the medulla oblongata.”) At the same time, Freud became deeply impressed by Charcot’s teachings on neuropathology and began to study almost exclusively under him. (3.3) Charcot claimed that our knowledge of anatomy and of organic diseases was nearly complete, and what remained to be studied were the neuroses (in other words, diseases with no obvious physiological cause). Among the neuroses, Charcot specialized in hysteria. Historically, this illness had been poorly studied up until then. Charcot demonstrated that its causes are not so strongly linked to the genitals (for, it was long thought to be linked to the uterus), because it occurs in men too, who may have traumatic hysteria. He also determined the precise physiological symptoms for properly diagnosing hysteria. (3.4) Charcot also used hypnotism to arrive “at a kind of theory of hysterical symptomatology.” He treated it with full scientific rigor. At the same time, it was amazing to behold, and Freud was deeply impressed by the technique.

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

Text Information

 

3.1

[Editor’s Note: This Text as Marking Freud’s Turn from Neurology to Psychopathology]

 

3.2

[Freud’s Initial Anatomical Interests and His Attraction to Charcot’s Teachings]

 

3.3

[Charcot’s Advancing the Studies on Hysteria]

 

3.4

[Charcot’s Amazing and Scientific Use of Hypnotism]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

Text Information

BERICHT ÜBER MEINE MIT UNIVERSITÄTS-JUBILÄUMS REISESTIPENDIUM UNTERNOMMENE STUDIENREISE NACH PARIS UND BERLIN

(a) German Edition:

(1886 Date of composition.)

1960 In J. and R. Gicklhorn’s Sigmund Freuds akademische Laufbahn im Lichte der Dokumente, 82, Vienna.

 

(b) English Translation:

‘Report on my Studies in Paris and Berlin’

1956 Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 37 (1), 2-7. (Tr. James Strachey.)

The present translation is a slightly corrected reprint of the one published in 1956.

(3)

 

 

 

Summary

 

3.1

[Editor’s Note: This Text as Marking Freud’s Turn from Neurology to Psychopathology]

 

[Editor’s Note: Freud began as a medical student interested in neuroanatomy. In 1885-1886, he studied abroad, in France, with a grant from his school, Vienna University. During his intellectual explorations, especially under the influence of Jean-Martin Charcot, Freud’s interests change from neurology to psychopathology. This text is important for giving us insight into that fateful turn in the history of human culture.]

 

The editor, James Strachey, says that Freud’s report here marks  “a historic event: the diversion of Freud's scientific interests from neurology to psychology” (3). Freud is reporting on his accomplishments during a trip funded by Vienna University in 1885 (p.3), where he was studying medicine. He finished writing the report on the 22nd of April, 1886 (p.3). This text gives us insight into the way that Freud’s interests turned from neuroanatomy to psychopathology, by means of his work with Jean-Martin Charcot at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Strachey marks that turning point as happening early December, 1885.

The high importance which Freud himself always attributed to his studies under Charcot is a matter of common knowledge. | This report marks his experience at the Salpêtrière with the utmost clarity as a turning point. When he arrived in Paris, his ‘chosen concern’ was with the anatomy of the nervous system; when he left, his mind was filled with the problems of hysteria and hypnotism. He had turned his back on neurology and was moving towards psychopathology. It would even be possible to assign a precise date to the change – in early December, 1885, when he ceased his work in the pathological laboratory of the Salpêtrière; but the inconvenient arrangements at that laboratory, which he himself puts forward as the explanation, were, of course, no more than a precipitating cause of the momentous shift in the direction of Freud's interests. Other and deeper factors were at work, and among them, no doubt, the great personal influence which Charcot evidently exercised on him.

(3-4)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.2

[Freud’s Initial Anatomical Interests and His Attraction to Charcot’s Teachings]

 

[Freud used his traveling grant to study neuropathology at the Hospice de la Salpêtrière. One thing that attracted him about this school was Jean-Martin Charcot, who was “inclined to study rare and strange material.” Freud’s initial research interests were “anatomical problems” (namely,  “the secondary atrophies and degenerations that follow on affections of the brain in children.”) However, Freud found that the laboratory for these studies was inadequate, so he switched to studying  something else (namely, “the relations of the nuclei of the posterior column in the medulla oblongata.”) At the same time, Freud became deeply impressed by Charcot’s teachings on neuropathology and began to study almost exclusively under him.]

 

[ditto]

In my application for the award of the Travelling Bursary from the University Jubilee Fund for the year 1885-6, I expressed my intention of proceeding to the Hospice de la Salpêtrière in Paris and of there continuing my studies in neuropathology. Several factors had contributed to this choice. [...] there was the great name of J.-M. Charcot, who has now been working and teaching in his hospital for seventeen years.

(5)

In consequence of the scarcity of any lively personal contact between French and German physicians, the | findings of the French school – some of them (upon hypnotism) highly surprising and some of them (upon hysteria) of practical importance – had been met in our countries with more doubt than recognition and belief; and the French workers, and above all Charcot, were obliged to submit to the charge of lacking in critical faculty or at least of being inclined to study rare and strange material and to dramatize their working-up of that material. Accordingly, when the honourable College of Professors distinguished me by the award of the Travelling Bursary, I gladly seized the opportunity which was thus offered of forming a judgement upon these facts based on my own experience [...].

(5-6)

J.-M. Charcot, when he was an ‘interne’ at the Salpêtrière in 1856, perceived the necessity of making chronic nervous diseases the subject of constant and exclusive study, and he determined to return to the Salpêtrière as a médecin des hôpitaux and never thereafter to leave it.

(7)

The man who is at the head of all these resources and auxiliary services is now sixty years of age. He exhibits the liveliness, cheerfulness, and formal perfection of speech which we are in the habit of attributing to the French national character; while at the same time he displays the patience and love of work which we usually claim for our own nation. The attraction of such a personality soon led me to restrict my visits to one single hospital and to seek instruction from one single man. I abandoned my occasional attempts at attending other lectures after I had become convinced that all they had to offer were for the most part well-constructed rhetorical performances. The only exceptions were Professor Brouardel's forensic autopsies and lectures at the Morgue, which I rarely missed.

(8)

My work in the Salpêtrière itself took on a different shape from what I had originally laid down for myself. I had arrived with the intention of making one single question the subject of a thorough investigation; and since in Vienna my chosen concern had been with anatomical problems, I had selected the study of the secondary atrophies and degenerations that follow on affections of the brain in children.

(8)

The laboratory was not at all adapted to the reception of an extraneous worker, and such space and resources as existed were made inaccessible owing to lack of any kind of organization. I thus found myself obliged to give up anatomical work³ and rest content with a discovery concerned with the relations of the nuclei of the posterior column in the medulla oblongata.

(8)

3. [This was at the beginning of December, 1885 (Jones. 1953, 231)].

(8)

Jones, E. (1953) Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, Vol. 1, London and New York. (Page references are to the English edition.) (xvii, 3, 8, 9, 15, 20, 24, 64, 157, 175-6, 213, 262, 284, 290)

(409)

In contrast to the inadequacy of the laboratory, the clinic at the Salpêtrière provided such a plethora of new and interesting material that it needed all my efforts to profit by the instruction which this favourable opportunity afforded. The weekly timetable was divided as follows. On Mondays Charcot delivered his public lecture, which delighted its hearers by the perfection of its form, while its subject-matter was familiar from the work of the preceding week. What these lectures offered was not so much elementary instruction in neuropathology as information, rather, on the Professor's latest researches; and they produced their effect primarily by their constant references to the patients who were being demonstrated. On Tuesdays Charcot held his ‘consultation externe’, at which his assistants brought before him for examination the typical or puzzling cases among the very large number attending the out-patient department.

(9)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.3

[Charcot’s Advancing the Studies on Hysteria]

 

[Charcot claimed that our knowledge of anatomy and of organic diseases was nearly complete, and what remained to be studied were the neuroses (in other words, diseases with no obvious physiological cause). Among the neuroses, Charcot specialized in hysteria. Historically, this illness had been poorly studied up until then. Charcot demonstrated that its causes are not so strongly linked to the genitals (for, it was long thought to be linked to the uterus), because it occurs in men too, who may have traumatic hysteria. He also determined the precise physiological symptoms for properly diagnosing hysteria.]

 

[ditto]

Charcot used to say that, broadly speaking, the work of anatomy was finished and that the theory of the organic diseases of the nervous system might be said to be complete: what had next to be dealt with was the neuroses. This pronouncement may, no doubt, be regarded as no more than an expression of the tum which his own activities have taken. For many years now his work has been centred almost entirely on the neuroses, and above all on hysteria, which, since the opening of the outpatient department and of the clinic, he has had an opportunity of studying in men as well as women.

I will venture to sum up in a few words what Charcot has achieved in the clinical study of hysteria. Up to now, hysteria can scarcely be regarded as a name with any well-defined meaning. The state of illness to which it is applied is only character- | ized scientifically by negative signs; it has been studied little and unwillingly; and it labours under the odium of some very widespread prejudices. Among these are the supposed dependence of hysterical illness upon genital irritation, the view that no definite symptomatology can be assigned to hysteria simply because any combination of symptoms can occur in it, and finally the exaggerated importance that has been attributed to simulation in the clinical picture of hysteria. During the last few decades a hysterical woman would have been almost as certain to be treated as a malingerer, as in earlier centuries she would have been certain to be judged and condemned as a witch or as possessed of the devil. In another respect there has, if anything, been a step backward in the knowledge of hysteria. The Middle Ages had a precise acquaintance with the ‘stigmata’ of hysteria, its somatic signs, and interpreted and made use of them in their own fashion.

(11)

In his study of hysteria Charcot started out from the most fully developed cases, which he regarded as the perfect types of the disease. He began by reducing the connection of the neurosis with the genital system to its correct proportions by demonstrating the unsuspected frequency of cases of male hysteria and especially of traumatic hysteria. In these typical cases he next found a number of somatic signs (such as the character of the attack, anaesthesia, disturbances of vision, hysterogenic points etc.), which enabled him to establish the diagnosis of hysteria with certainty on the basis of positive indications.

(11)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.4

[Charcot’s Amazing and Scientific Use of Hypnotism]

 

[Charcot also used hypnotism to arrive “at a kind of theory of hysterical symptomatology.” He treated it with full scientific rigor. At the same time, it was amazing to behold, and Freud was deeply impressed by the technique.]

 

[ditto]

By making a scientific study of hypnotism – a region of neuropathology which had to be wrung on the one side from scepticism and on the other from fraud – he himself arrived at a kind of theory of hysterical symptomatology.

(11)

Nor did I neglect the opportunity of acquiring a personal acquaintance with the phenomena of hypnotism, which are so astonishing and to which so little credence is attached, and in particular with the ‘grand hypnotisme’ [‘major hypnotism’] described by Charcot. I found to my astonishment that here were occurrences plain before one’s eyes, which it was quite impossible to doubt, but which were nevertheless strange enough not to be believed unless they were experienced at first hand. I saw no sign, however, that Charcot showed any special preference for rare and strange material or that he tried to exploit it for mystical purposes. On the contrary, he regarded hypnotism as a field of phenomena which he submitted to scientific description, just as he had done many years before with multiple sclerosis or progressive muscular atrophy. He did not seem to me to be at all one of those men who marvel at what is rare rather than what is usual; and the whole trend of his mind leads me to suppose that he can find no rest till he has correctly described and classified some phenomenon with which he is concerned, but that he can sleep quite soundly without having arrived at the physiological explanation of that phenomenon.

I have given considerable space in this Report to remarks on hysteria and hypnotism because I had to deal with what was completely novel and the subject of Charcot’s own particular studies.

(13)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

 

Freud, Sigmund. “Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin” (1956 [1886]). In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, Vol. 1, (1886–1899): Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts, edited and translated by James Strachey, 1–15. London: Hogarth, 1966.

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Freud (ED.V1) Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, V1 (1886-1889): Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts

 

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“Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin”

(1956 [1886])

[Notes]

 

6

“Observations of a Severe Case of Hemi-Anaesthesia in a Hysterical Male”

(1886)

[Notes]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, Vol. 1, (1886–1899): Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts. Edited and translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth, 1966.

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Somers-Hall, (2.10), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘2.10 Freud’s First Synthesis (96–8/119–22, 111–14/136–40)’, summary

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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos and other distracting mistakes. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself

2.10 Freud’s First Synthesis (96–8/119–22, 111–14/136–40)

Very brief summary:

The first synthesis is habitual contraction. For Freud, an organic system habitually contracts surplus, stability-threatening external excitations into itself so that the pleasure principle can effectively neutralize them by incorporating them safely into the system’s workings. The first synthesis in Freud, then, is passive, since it is a mechanism operating independently of an active ego that seeks pleasure. It is also an expression of the death drive. This is because the compulsion to repeat wants to preserve the system by keeping it in its current state of homeostasis. But all the while, it is naturally evolving away from its current state. Thus it is tending backward in evolution, toward its inorganic, non-living origins.

Brief summary:
In Freud’s model, an organic system has a relatively ordered dynamics, which can be disrupted by an excess of external excitations. One way it deals with this threatening excess is to habitually contract it into the system, which then has its ways of minimizing its destructive influence. [For example, if we suffer a trauma, we have an excess of disruptive excitation in our systems. Then we relive it for example repeatedly in our dreams, which use associations to distribute it relatively safely throughout the rest of our psyche]. This tendency to incorporate the surplus energy habitually is the compulsion to repeat and as well the libido. The pleasure principle is the tendency of the system to take that already contacted surplus energy and to manage it. The more it can be minimized or kept under control, the more pleasure we feel. However, the more it disrupts the system, the more unpleasure we experience. Thus the pleasure principle must be understood as distinct from the compulsion to repeat, since they are performing different actions. This can explain why it is we repeat traumas even though they are unpleasant; for, the compulsion to repeat them does not operate according to the pleasure principle. It is merely a mechanical feature of the organic system, and it is like the first passive synthesis of contracted habit. The contraction habit is a self-preservation drive, but it is a variation on the death drive. This is because the compulsion to repeat is an expression of a movement away from evolution toward the creature’s inorganic evolutionary origins.

 

Summary

Deleuze claims that Freud’s concern in Beyond the Pleasure Principle is not examining the exceptions to the pleasure principle but rather in determining “the conditions under which pleasure effectively becomes a principle” (SH 85, qtg DR 96/120). We previously discussed an organizing principle of the psyche in Freud’s account, which tries to maintain stasis of excitation [and prior to that we saw Kant’s transcendental ego as providing the unity of experience and thought.] Deleuze thinks that “prior to the organising principle of the ego” there is already a “biopsychical life” that is “a field of individuation in which differences in intensity are distributed here and there [Ça et là] in the form of excitations” (85 qtg DR 96/119). These levels of excitation will vary over time, and pleasure would be understood as a process operating in this system (85). Deleuze equates the here and there [ça et là] with Freud’s id [Ça]. Although this equation is problematic, it also helps us pose this sections key question, namely, “how does pleasure cease to be a process in order to become a principle that organises the life of the unconscious?” (85). [I do not completely grasp what SH says next. Perhaps the ideas are like this. If we assumed there was a subject, we can say that the subject gives value to pleasure, and on the basis of this value, the subject organizes their psychic life and behavior. But if we remove that subject, then there is nothing to give value to pleasure in the first place, and thus there would be no reason to pursue it. So if, like Freud and Deleuze, we remove that pre-given subject, we need to explain how a psychic system comes to organize itself in such a way that it maximizes pleasure, when that pleasure is of no greater value than displeasure. Let me quote.]

Now, in spite of the problematic nature of the argument, it does seem like a reasonable equation, and it allows us to raise the key question of this section, which is, how does pleasure cease to be a process in order to become a principle that organises the life of the unconscious? An answer such as ‘pleasure is pleasing’ is tautologous, and misses the point. If we try, as Freud has, to give an account of pleasure that does not already presuppose the existence of a subject who values it, then we have to be able to account for how this value gets attached to this particular biological process in the first place. That is, how a (value neutral) process becomes a principle of organisation and action.
(85)

When we receive an excitation, our consciousness recognizes that something happened, and it is stored into memory.  Freud claims that “it is not possible within a given system for something both to enter consciousness and also to leave a memory trace’ (Freud 2003a: 64)” (SH 85d). SH explains that

The reason for this is that if traces of excitation remained in consciousness, then they would prevent the system from registering | new excitations. We therefore need to see the processes of memory and consciousness as operating within two parallel systems, much as habit and memory were different in kind in the first account of the three syntheses.
(85-86)

SH continues “We can begin with the most primitive form of life, an ‘undifferentiated vesicle of irritable matter’ (Freud 2003a: 65)” (SH 86) [but I do not understand what such a being would be. Would a single celled organism be such a thing? If so, is it not internally differentiated? If not, what simpler life-form is there?] As this creature is affected by external stimuli, “its nature changes so that it is able to transmit them without its elements changing” which for Freud is the origin of consciousness (86). [I am not sure what it would mean to transmit the shocks without changing its nature. I suppose it is something like nervous signals and reflexes, but I am only guessing. I also do not understand very well the next part. The idea is that as these simple organisms evolve, they channel the excessive excitations to the inorganic, namely, the to skull. I do not understand that, since I would think the signals go to the brain and not the skull, and thus not to something inorganic. And, in even higher creatures the stimulations are further processed by separating out the perceptual aspects, which are the particular senses. It is still unclear for me. Is the idea that simpler organisms just have a simple kind of signal that means physical impact, and thus only have touch, and higher organisms have more senses?] “As the system evolves, it develops protection against excessive stimulation from the outside by partially reverting to the inorganic (the skull), and, in higher creatures, by separating off the perceptual aspects further (the development of particular senses)” (86). This model allows Freud to explain many of psychoanalysis’ most important findings. Also, excitations can come from within. Now, shocks from the outside can be reduced by a barrier [I am not sure what that is. I do not know if the barrier is something we discussed already, like repression (which does not seem like a barrier since it is dealing with the trauma from an external shock that already entered the system and did its damage), or if it is a new idea, like a sort of desensitization or something like closing the eyes when light is too bright.] But there are no such barriers for internal traumas. So, “Traumas which affect the organism from the inside therefore have a far greater role within the economy of the organism than those which affect it from the outside” (86). Also, projection occurs when the organism interprets an internal trauma as originating from the outside (86).

In Freud’s account, we have trauma when there is surplus excitation that cannot be incorporated into the system. The organism might manage by channeling that energy into the system, thereby destabilizing it and creating unpleasure. This is a case where the pleasure principle does not explain the psyche’s workings. One example is war trauma. [The idea seems to be that the patient relives the traumatic experience, since its energy cannot be eliminated, so it is recycled. But because it is rechanneled into the system, that is a way to master it.]

In cases of trauma or pain, Freud claims, rather than seeking to maintain the lowest possible level of psychic energy, the organism may attempt to stabilise the psychic system by suspending the pleasure principle, and instead annex the free flowing energy into the system of the psyche. This means that the pleasure principle does not always govern the operations of the psyche. This process of annexing energy from the outside can explain some of the situations where it appears as if the pleasure principle has been contravened. In the case of severe trauma, the system experiences unpleasure in order to retain its overall integrity. War trauma, for instance, would be a retrospective attempt to master the phenomena in question, that is, to assert control over them. Now, in the case of war trauma, this attempt to master and bind energy within the system leads | to the repetition of past experiences which lead to unpleasure on the part of the subject. Freud therefore claims that such compulsions to repeat simply cannot be understood according to the pleasure principle. (86-87).

In order for the pleasure principle to operate, there needs to be a way for excess energy to be systematically channeled rather than randomly jumping about (87). [I will quote this part, since I am not sure I got it right.]

Prior to the application of the pleasure principle, there needs to be some process of binding or annexation of excitation so that excitations can have ‘systematic resolution’, rather than arbitrarily traversing the life of the organism. So some kind of integration or organisation is necessary for us to be able to relate pleasure to a principle. Freud himself makes this point as follows [The following up to citation is Freud quotation]:

As the drive-impulses all act on our unconscious systems, it is scarcely a new departure to assert that they follow the primary process, and it is also no very great step to identify the primary psychic process with Breuer’s ‘free-flowing’ cathexis, and the secondary one with his ‘annexed’ or ‘tonic’ cathexis. This would then mean that it was the task of the higher echelons of the psychic apparatus to annex excitations originating from the drives and reaching it via the primary process. Any failure of this annexion process would bring about a dysfunction analogous to traumatic neurosis. Only when the annexion has taken place would the pleasure principle (or, once the latter has been duly modified, the reality principle) be able to assert its dominion unhindered. In the meantime, however, the psychic apparatus’s other task of controlling or annexing the excitation would be very much to the fore – not, it is true, in opposition to the pleasure principle, but independently of it, and to some extent quite heedless of it. (Freud 2003a: 74–5)

The pleasure principle therefore rests on the integration of excitations that are originally unbound.
(SH 87)

SH then notes some parallels with the first synthesis of time. Recall how “a contraction of impressions led to the constitution of a subject” (87). Here the free flowing energy is contracted into the system, which is productive of the subject. [I am not sure I understand the point SH here makes about signs, so I will quote:]

Deleuze’s point is also that as the self is constituted by the integration or contraction of excitations, it simply is these excitations. This gives us the reason why Deleuze calls these contracting egos ‘narcissistic’. What they relate to is, in a sense, themselves, or an image of themselves, in the form of the excitations | that they bind. The movement of binding therefore finds satisfaction in a narcissistic relation to its own image. In this sense, the fact that the egos constituted by the binding process are narcissistic parallels the way in which the selves that were contracted habits in the first synthesis of time related not to objects, but to signs. So just as a heartbeat appears as a sign in our world that doesn’t resemble the movement of the heart itself, the binding of excitations constitutes egos that do not relate directly to objects, but to images of themselves.

(87-88)

[I am not sure about the next point, but the reasoning seems to be like the following. The psychic system habitually contracts surplus energy into its workings. On this basis pleasure is possible, since this brings more balance to the system, even though in another sense it is somewhat disruptive to it.] “It is not the case that pleasure gives rise to habit, therefore, in the sense that we might talk of repeating something enjoyable, but rather it is the existence of habits that leads to pleasure” (89). [The next point seems to be something like the following. Freud’s model places a basic mechanical operation as the basis for pleasure. In this sense, it is a passive synthesis, since it is not an ego who favors pleasure and on that basis organizes the surplus excitations.]

In the discussion of habit, Deleuze claimed that habit was only conceived of as reproduction when it was incorporated into a mathematicised ‘temporal space’ by the imagination. Similarly here, it is only by relating pleasure to the past and the future and by instituting the pleasure principle that we are able to see pleasure as operating prior to habit. That is, by talking about ‘pleasure in general’, we introduce the ‘idea of pleasure’. Once pleasure is no longer related to a passive synthesis, but is seen as organised in relation to a principle, we have an active synthesis that relates to an ego. The result of this is that the pleasure principle will now be seen as primary, since without some kind of external organising principle, it is impossible to explain how indifferent processes can form a coherent system, and how individual excitations can be related to one another (how habits are formed). One final thing to note is that binding and the pleasure principle relate to different objects. Binding operates on free excitations in order to enable the pleasure principle to relate them together into a system.
(88)

[The final point made above is that we need to distinguish two different things: 1) the passively synthetic binding operation that incorporates the surplus energy into the system, and 2) the pleasure principle, which aims to reduce the quantity of energy within the system. The pleasure principle only deals with the surplus energy once it has been incorporated into the system, and thus it is not the pleasure principle which is responsible for those contractions in the first place. But it is not entirely clear to me at this point what the pleasure principle does with the surplus energy that has been incorporated. At any rate, the compulsion to repeat is the binding operation, which is also for Freud the death drive. We later learn why.]

There are therefore two principles operative within the psyche. The first is to increase pleasure within the psychic apparatus by reducing the quantity of energy within it. This is the pleasure principle. The second is a principle that attempts to convert unbound energy into bound energy by mastering excitations. This is the compulsion to repeat, which will become the death drive. Freud’s claim is that it is only once excitations have been annexed by the psyche that the pleasure principle can become operative.
(88)

So, Freud grounds the compulsion to repeat in the organism’s basic, original structure. This means the compulsion can be analyzed as a “basic function of life itself” (88d), perhaps in the sense of a mechanical operation of the organism that is not fundamentality tied to higher order cognitions or to an active ego. [The next part is a bit complicated. It would be convenient to simplify it. Perhaps we can say the following. (But please check the quotation that follows to get the complete account.) Were the organism to allow its system to further become disorganized by surplus excitations, it would be more able to evolve as a creature, since it would be mutating or self-varying. But since it wants to minimize disruption, it is tending toward a prior state in its evolution. (Yet, it is not clear to me why staying in the same stage is understood as going backward a step. Perhaps this is because its forward movement is already set in motion.) The next point is that evolution is the development from the inorganic to the organic. Thus the tendency to find stasis through repetition, that is, through the habitual contractive incorporation of surplus energy into the system, is the death drive. For, it is the drive to go toward the inorganic evolutionary origins. Thus we have two drives, the drive to repeat, which preserves the organism, and the death drive, which wants the organism to become more inorganic. Since their aims are different, they are not the same drive, but the libido is a variation on the death drive.]

While the compulsion to repeat can operate in accordance with the | libido, it can also operate as a tendency of life to return to an earlier stage. Freud characterises this tendency to return in the following terms [the following up to citation is Freud quotation]:

At this point we cannot help thinking that we have managed to identify a universal attribute of drives – and perhaps of all organic life – that has not hitherto been clearly recognized, or at any rate not explicitly emphasized. A drive might accordingly be seen as a powerful tendency inherent in every living organism to restore a prior state, which prior state the organism was compelled to relinquish due to the disruptive influence of external forces; we can see it as a kind of organic elasticity, or, if we prefer, as a manifestation of inertia in organic life. (Freud 2003a: 76)

What leads Freud to this conclusion? Central to this conception are, I think, two primary assumptions in the account we have been looking at so far. The first is that the organism is defined essentially as closed off from the world. Organic life’s engagement with the world is seen as essentially traumatic and disruptive for Freud. Second, there is the belief that organisms, in their particular development, tend to repeat their development as a species. If we combine these two assumptions, then we have the claim that change (and hence development) is traumatic, and therefore generates a tendency for the organism to return to a prior, less traumatic state. Now, Freud claims that this movement can be seen in the fact that fish, when spawning, return not simply to their own birthplace, but also ‘to the previous domain of their species, which, in the course of time, they have exchanged for others’ (Freud 2003a: 77). Here the second claim, the recapitulation theory of embryo development, comes into play, as each animal carries with it the history of its development from the simplest forms of life. In fact, this movement is not simply to the earliest forms of life, but to the origin of life itself in the move from the inorganic to the organic. Thus, the drive to repeat is not simply a drive to return to an earlier form of life, but in fact, a death drive. In this sense, the compulsion to repeat/return and the death drive are equivalent: ‘The goal of all life is death, or to express it retroactively: the inanimate existed before the animate’ (Freud 2003a: 78). Freud’s account of the origin of repetition therefore ultimately traces it back to the constitution of consciousness itself. Life can be seen as playing out the relations between two different drives. First, there is the libido, which aims at conserving life by protecting the organism from external traumas that threaten to destabilise it. This conservation of life is ultimately to be understood as simply making more complex the more fundamental drive, the death drive, which seeks to return the organism to its primal state.
(88-89)

SH notes a key feature of Freud’s account. Since the organism wants to move back toward its inorganic origins, its death is not always to be attributed merely to external forces. SH then addresses the question, if life wants to dissolve into the inorganic, why do life forms exist at all? [The answer is not entirely clear to me, but it seems to be saying that the death drive remains dominant, but is channeled through more life preserving drives. The reasoning why I do not quite grasp, so please read the following quotation. Perhaps SH is saying that the simplest life forms in early evolution lived and died quickly, as we would expect from them having a death drive and also a primitive self-sustenance system. It is only because of some accidental structural feature of their chemical make-up that there is a delay between birth and death. Then, the creature evolves more complicated chemical structures which further that delay. It is still not clear why those self-sustaining structures would develop if the death drive aims to minimize them. Perhaps it is all an accident of evolution.]

Well, death is at first ‘still easy for living matter; the course of life that had to be gone through was probably short, its direction determined by the newly created organism’s chemical structure’ (Freud 2003a: 78–9). Over time, however, the complexity of life means that more and more detours are incorporated between life and death. These drives delay the movement towards death, and so appear to be conservative. They are the ‘guardians of life’ in that they allow the organism to perpetuate itself, but in the end, these drives, such as the sexual drives, are ultimately subordinated to the death drive. They are determined by the fact that the organism wants to choose its own death, rather than succumb to external influences.
(90)

[SH’s concluding point seems to be that because of the death drive, there is repetition in the organic system. And so this is like Deleuze’s notion of the eternal return as a repetition of difference. But for Freud, what is repeating is a similar sort of action in an extending chain of moments, where for Deleuze what repeats is intensive difference.]

In essence, this death drive plays the same role that the eternal return plays in Deleuze’s account. The ground of Freud’s account is here characterised as a mode of repetition. Once again, however, we can see that rather than repetition being conceived of as a field of intensive difference, it is here understood as an extensive, physical structure, much as time was equated with passive extension in Kant’s philosophy. As we shall see, Deleuze will retain the structure of the death drive, but instead understand death in terms of a field of intensive difference. Before turning to Deleuze’s account of the third synthesis as the death drive, we need to briefly look at the second synthesis.
(90)

 

 

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Or if otherwise noted:

DR:
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994/London: Continuum, 2004.

Freud, Sigmund (2003a), ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings, trans. John Reddick, London: Penguin Books, 43–102.

 

 

Somers-Hall, (2.9), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘2.9 Freud (16–19/18–22, 96/119–20)’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos and other distracting mistakes. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself

2.9 Freud (16–19/18–22, 96/119–20)

Brief summary:
Deleuze is interested in non-representational repetition. Similarly, Freud is interested in repetitions of past traumas in our behaviors and psychic life that result from an experience that is non-representational, since it has been repressed. But while for Freud the compulsion to repeat is the brute repetition of matter, for Deleuze it is the intensive repetition of difference. In Freud’s account, the psyche is understood as a system that manages excitations, trying to keep itself in dynamic balance. Minimizing or keeping constant the levels of excitation leads to pleasure, and this is called the pleasure principle or a principle of homeostasis. Sometimes there is more excitation than it can handle, as in traumatic experiences, which leads to unpleasure. Yet, at times we now defer pleasure for greater pleasure in the future. This is the reality principle. But the repetition of past traumatic events cannot be explained by the pleasure principle.

 

Summary

Previously we discussed the eternal return. Deleuze then moves to a new topic, “biopsychic life (DR 96/119)” (SH 83). It is more of a repetition of the previous topic, now in terms of Freud rather than of Kant. “In this section Deleuze aims to show once again that at the root of the psyche is a field of intensive difference” (83). On the one hand, Deleuze would seem to side with Freud, since “Freud recognises that repetition falls outside of representation” (83). However, Deleuze does agree with Freud that “the source of our compulsion to repeat [is] the brute repetition of matter rather than the intensive repetition of difference” (84).

Freud is concerned with repression. In his account of it, he relates repetition, repression, and representation. He does so by saying that whatever a patient forgets and represses [that is, perhaps, whatever memorial representations they block from their recollections], they repeat by acting them out without being aware they are doing so (84).

A psychoanalyst could treat such patient by helping them “to form a representation of an initially unrepresentable trauma, which the patient repeats without being able to represent this repetition” (84). [I do not grasp this clearly. Perhaps the representation that the patient forms is something similar to a memory or some other repeatedly imagined image that somehow substitutes for the repressed one. I am not sure how the repetitions of this image would not be represented, and I am not sure why those repetitions need to not be represented. Perhaps the analyst guides the patients to repeat the image without them knowing the analyst is trying to do so and without knowing that doing so has some therapeutic value. And perhaps the patient must not be able to represent this repetition so that they do not put up defenses and block it. I am merely guessing.] Since Deleuze is also interested in non-representational repetition, Freud’s notion “bears certain structural analogies with that which Deleuze is interested in” (84). But, to understand Freud’s thinking, we must begin with his concept of pleasure. It would seem obvious that we act in order to maximize the pleasure we feel (84). To understand what Freud means by pleasure, we first note that for him, the psyche is a “system subjected to excitations from both inside and outside” (84). Sometimes the excitations can be too much for the psyche to handle, shocking and traumatizing it and thereby threatening its stability. Such destabilizing excitations would be “interpreted by consciousness as ‘unpleasure’” (84). [It seems then there can be a surplus of energy that the system cannot handle. When this surplus is reduced, we feel pleasure.] “A relaxation of the psyche, which involves a reduction in energy which hasn’t been incorporated into the psychic system, is seen, on the contrary, as involving pleasure” (84). The psyche tries to minimize the destabilizing energy. Such efforts, then, strive for the constancy of homeostasis, that is, to minimize or at least keep constant the quantity of excitation (84).

Yet, sometimes we defer pleasure, thereby experiencing unpleasure, for the sake of greater pleasure later on. This is the reality principle. Or, we may “repress particular drives in order that other parts of the psychic system can experience pleasure” (84). But when we repeat traumatic experiences, we are doing something that the pleasure principle cannot explain and perhaps is contrary to it. [SH writes “Reliving past traumas, for instance, or even the stability of our characters, are situations where it appears that our repetition of behaviours is either underdetermined by the pleasure principle, or worse, actually opposed to it” (84), but I do not know what he means by reliving the stability of our characters and how it goes against a principle of homeostasis.] SH ends this section by writing: “Deleuze sees Freud’s attempt to account for this fact as providing a transcendental account much like his own three syntheses of time” (85).

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Or if otherwise noted:

DR:
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994/London: Continuum, 2004.

 

 

Eros and the Virtual. Ch.4.6 of Williams'; Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Time

summary by Corry Shores

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Eros and the Virtual

James Williams'

Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Time:
A Critical Introduction and Guide

Chapter 4: The third synthesis of time

Part 6: Transcendental Dogmatism? 

Brief summary:

Deleuze’s philosophy of time is speculative rather than dogmatic, because it posits “certain principles or events without further grounding argument. These speculative assumptions are then tested, for instance, in terms of how they contribute to a consistent theory.” (107) For example, Deleuze’s Freud material (on Eros and habit) in his discussion of the time syntheses does well for illustration, but it is not essential for the validity of the concepts. And “Eros allows for a return of the pure past in present attractions and selections through virtual objects drawn from the pure past” (110).

Summary

Williams says that "In order to avoid accusations of dogmatism based on a contingent and therefore illegitimate selection of given components for Deleuze’s philosophy, I have described it as speculative." (107b) "it is speculative in having to posit certain principles or events without further grounding argument. These speculative assumptions are then tested, for instance, in terms of how they contribute to a consistent theory, as shown in the previous chapter on the first synthesis of time." (10bc)

If an old philosophical text is anchored to outdated research, it becomes a historical relic rather than something that is still scientifically valid. Difference and Repetition might have this problem since it refers to scientific research. (108a) Regarding time, Deleuze refers to biopsychological examples, but his work does not rest on them.

Eros plays a part in explaining the way that attraction connects the first and third syntheses: "a living present is also a selection of the past driven by an attraction towards the new in the future." (108cd) But Eros is not mentioned when discussing the third synthesis.

The future in the third synthesis is not determined by the living present or the pure past. (108d) This makes the future unconditioned. (109a)

Deleuze offers a critical reading of Freud to further explain this. (109b)

"The key point to insist upon is that the reading is critical and that this critique is based on the work on the three syntheses of time. Deleuze follows Freud’s work on the pleasure principle not in order to deduce these syntheses, but rather to show how they allow for an explanation of passive syntheses in Freud by mapping them, first, on to habit, then on to pure memory and finally on to Eros." (109b.c)

Pleasure and displeasure presuppose habit. Thus habit is not a result of the search for pleasure. "The argument is thus that in order for there to be an idea of an acquired pleasure or of a pleasure to be acquired there must first have been many syntheses connecting many events over time." (109d)

The Freudian material does well to illustrate the syntheses of time, but they are not essential for the validity of the concepts. (110b) "Therefore, Deleuze’s work is not in danger of accusations of dogmatism on the grounds that it rests on scientifi c views that are prone to be viewed as false or incomplete over time. Neither is it open to the accusation that it rests on patently false science (via Freud, for instance)."

Deleuze discusses Eros in relation to Bergson and the pure past.

"Eros allows for a return of the pure past in present attractions and selections through virtual objects drawn from the pure past. Any novel drive is not to be explained by a simple attraction to real objects because an active synthesis in the present never presents us with the full object | explaining that attraction." (110-111) Passive syntheses underlie the virtual object. But we cannot get the virtual object from the past or living present, so we are really attracted to the new, but this attraction remains unfulfilled. This means we are drawn towards something that is more than can be recognized or grasped. "This need not only be viewed in terms of human sexuality. It is rather that any novel drive and binding is made through virtual objects. These objects cannot be real, in the sense of accounted for fully from within a set of known objects, yet neither are they completely unknown or unmanageable." (111b)

Virtual objects are fully determined by the past, but also they are drawn by the pure past. So "Any attraction and binding to the new is not a leap into complete indetermination and a chaotic set of relations, but rather a partial move through the virtual object." (111b)

The novelty of the virtual object is drawn from the pure past, but its real part is drawn from the present.

"That is why Deleuze describes the virtual object as having an eternal positive lack at its heart. It is neither fully any real object, nor any past object, nor fully pure difference or a set of varying relations in the pure past. It is all of these in an unstable mix, where unstable is also not a negative term, but rather an explanation of the attraction and eternal novelty allowed for by virtual objects: Drawn from the real present object, the virtual object differs from it in its nature; it does not only lack something in relation to the real object it subtracts itself from; it lacks something in itself, by being half of itself, where the other half is posited as different and absent. (DRf, 135)." (111c.d)

Deleuze's novel treatment of Eros shows how his philosophy of time is independent of psychoanalysis.

Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Time: A Critical Introduction and Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.