University College of London and Anna Freud Centre

Msc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology

PSYCGP33 : An Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory

Tutor: Phillip McGill

Student Candidate Number: NXKL2

Date of Submission: 11 January 2017

Essay Title:

“The Concepts of Anxiety and Defence in Sigmund Freud’s Theory and Anna

Freud Contributions to Defence Mechanisms Theory”

Word Count: 2.967

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Introduction

Throughout his lifework of developing the theory of psychoanalysis, Sigmund

Freud was devoted to the understanding of the mind. Through this essay, the

reader will discover how the concepts of anxiety and defence are key for this

purpose. However during the almost fifty years of his thinking, Sigmund Freud

often felt the need to review his own theory, based on new observations he made

within his practice as a clinician, and these aforementioned concepts were not an

exception. This essay will offer a description of the main modifications the concepts

of anxiety and defence suffered, from Freud´s first stages of psychoanalytic

thinking, until his last years. This essay will then consider the ideas and

contributions to these topics made by Sigmund Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud, will

be considered

1. Sigmund Freud

In order to situate Freud’s ideas, it is necessary to provide some historical context

about his theory in general. In this sense, it has been described that his thinking

could be categorized in three moments, from the beginning of his work to the end.

These are the Affect-Trauma Model (mid-1880s to 1897), the Topographical Model

(1897-1923) and the Structural Model (1923-1939).

1.1 Affect-Trauma Model:

This moment of Freud’s theory can be considered to start with his work along

Breuer described on “Studies on Hysteria” (1895/1955) where both authors were

interested in understanding the cause of rare physical symptom present in some

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women of their time, with no organic origin. Freud would start to develop the theory

of psychoanalysis based on his observations within his clinical setting of these

women, already having an idea regarding an unconscious mind from previous

experiences with Charcot, who he had met in France in 1885. Through this process

he would come to believe that these women had experienced episodes during their

childhood, too unbearable to remember consciously, usually because these events

had a sexual nature. In this sense, Freud would describe that these memories had

a traumatic effect and in order for the individual to survive these experiences, the

mind would need to split those memories and keep them unconscious, however, in

this process, the affect, understood as the “qualitative expression of the quantity of

instinctual energy and of its fluctuations” (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973/1988),

would remain on the body and create symptoms linked to the original traumatic

idea.

It is important to consider that during this first phase of Freud’s thinking, he would

stand from his background on medicine and from the scientific and philosophical

influences of his time (Sandler, Holder, Dare and Dreher, 1997), since he would try

to find meaning for these observed symptoms through ideas around excitation and

discharge of instinctual sexual energy (libido). Freud believed that in order for

these ideas, linked to a strong sexual energy, to remain unconscious, a defence,

which is an “operation aimed at the reduction and elimination of any change liable

to threaten the integrity and stability of the biopsychological individual” (Laplanche

and Pontalis, 1973/1988), had to take place against them. However, the instinctual

energy would never cease to try and become conscious, so Freud would say that

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whenever the unconscious material pushed the boundaries of the defence, a

transformation of affect would occur so the individual will not feel sexual wishes but

its equivalent after the mentioned process: anxiety. Anxiety at this point of his

theory is then understood as a derivative of and the way in which libidinal

repressed wishes became manifest (Sandler et al., 1997). It is important to mention

that at this moment of his theory, Freud did not emphasize the difference between

defence and repression. This issue will become clearer later in his life.

1.2 Topographical Model

This second phase of Freud´s theory brought new ideas that are relevant to

psychoanalysis even today. During this phase, Freud understood that though he

believed in his previous work that hysteria was related to actual disturbing sexual

experiences during childhood, the truth seemed to be now that these memories

has to do in a great part with his patients phantasies. Also, it was during this stage

of his thinking that he developed several writings such as “The Interpretation of

Dreams” (1900) and “The Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (1905), both

representing fundamental knowledge for psychoanalysis nowadays (Sandler et al.

1997).

Although the topographical model did not bring as much change to the concepts of

anxiety and defence as the last model (structural), it gave foot to tensions within

Freud’s thinking that were resolved through new conceptions of the mind, whereas

in his last model, Freud will review the ideas of anxiety and defence and make

sense of them in a different way.

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While in the first stage of his thinking Freud would describe the difference between

what is unconscious and what is not, at this point he tried to deliver a more in-

depth understanding of the interaction between these two instances within the

mind. This is how he reached the idea of a mind with “layers”, similar to the way

one thinks of an iceberg, meaning the part we all see, the consciousness, is just a

superficial small part of the mind, while the unconscious is hidden and big. He also

introduced the idea of preconscious, a system of the psychic apparatus that is

situated between the unconscious and consciousness which Freud (1912/1958)

would describe as latent ideas that can pass into consciousness with no difficulty.

To this Laplanche and Pontalis (1973, 1988) would add, based on Freud’s ideas,

that the preconscious is “separated from the unconscious (…) escapes immediate

consciousness without being unconscious in the strict sense of the word”.

As was previously illustrated, Freud would continue to learn from his clinical

practice, and his new observations would put him at a crossroad where he needed

to reformulate some of his concepts. Sandler et al. (1997) in their book “Freud’s

Models of the Mind” offer a useful description of the points of tension that made

Freud feel the need to formulate his last model (structural), however, as Sandler

says in the mentioned book, this does not mean the structural model will replace

the topographical one entirely, since the latter is complementary and still used

nowadays where appropriate.

To mention a few issues Sandler et al. (1997) propose, relevant for this essay, that

produced the need for a change in Freud’s conception of the mind, it is found that

the topographical model lacked of precision in the use of the term unconscious and

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it raised questions on the location of repressive defensive forces. In this sense,

Sandler et al. (1997) would say that during this phase, the matter of opposing

forces between the unconscious and defence was particularly important. However,

defensive forces could not be thought as conscious so there was no other way but

to allocate them to the preconscious system, which at this point was attributed the

capacity to access consciousness freely. This created a dilemma and the urgent

need to change the way defensive forces were understood.

Freud also realized there were not only sexual instincts but also aggression and

self-preservation ones that could be in conflict with libidinal wishes and finally, one

issue that is most relevant for this essay’s purpose and made it possible for Freud

to think about a new model, is the function of anxiety:

(…) the first theory of anxiety gave rise to problems about the topographical

location of, and conditions for, such transformation and its relation to the three

topographical systems. In particular, it is difficult to conceive of why such

transformed libido should be experienced in ways that are so similar to the

perception of external danger (…) it became clear that the idea of anxiety as the

transformation of libidinal drive impulse fitted very uneasily into the topographical

model (Sandler et al., 1997, p 159-160).

1.3 Structural Model

In this final stage of his thinking, Freud introduced the three agencies: the Id, the

Ego and the Superego.

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For the purpose of this essay, both id and superego will be described to provide

context, however, the ego will be defined at last, since it deserves much more

attention in terms of the relevance to this essay: anxiety and defence.

With the text “The Ego and The Id” (1923/1961) Freud introduced the concept of Id

as one of three agencies within the psychic apparatus, which is “the instinctual pole

of personality” (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973, 1988) and fully unconscious.

Through this new model, Freud would come to understand that there is more to the

unconscious than the libidinal energy and that these three agencies would have an

exchange mostly marked by internal conflict. With this notion, the Id is unconscious

but the unconscious is not only composed by the Id.

In the same paper written in 1923, Freud spoke about the Superego, another

agency which allows the parental (thus, social) prohibitions and demands to be

internalized and at the same time, puts pressure upon the Ego to dominate it with

the aim of oppressing the libidinal energy of (the) drives. According to Laplanche

and Pontalis (1973, 1988) Freud had previous ideas on the role of the Superego

before naming it, in concepts of Ego Ideal and Critical Agency.

There is a third agency, the Ego, which may be the most important to understand

for the purpose of this essay. On previous works, Freud had spoken about the Ego

as if it was similar to what he understood to be the consciousness or the

personality, however, with “The Ego and the Id” (1923/1961) Freud started

elaborating some notions on the Ego and the other two agencies, which will give

the initial thoughts towards his last model of the mind.

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First of all, the Ego is conceived as a bodily one, meaning it will develop from the Id

because of its contact with reality. The Ego will therefore have three severe

masters: The external world, The Superego and the Id (Freud, 1933/1964),

meaning its function will be to mediate between them and protect the individual

from psychical danger (unconsciously). To do so, the ego will display defence

mechanisms that it has to its disposal, whenever it feels anxiety. With this new

understanding of the mind’s functioning, comes what is known as Freud’s second

theory of anxiety, described on his paper “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety”

(1926/1959).

On this paper, Freud will say “the ego is the sole seat of anxiety (…) Whereas the

old view made it natural to suppose that anxiety arose from the libido belonging to

the repressed instinctual impulses, the new one tended to make the ego the source

of anxiety” (p. 151).

In this sense, when the Ego faces danger, it feels anxiety through the process of

“withdrawing cathexis from the unwelcome representation and uses that energy for

the purpose of releasing unpleasure in the form of anxiety” (Quinodoz, 2004/2005).

Thus, on this paper Freud would come to understand that anxiety is always related

to the loss of the loved object or of that object’s love and that the prototypical

experience of anxiety and separation would be birth. Additionally, Freud stated that

Anxiety can also work as a “Signal” when the ego fears the anticipation of losing

the object.

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One final distinction Freud delivered on this work, based on Little Hans’ case, is the

matter of defence and repression. He came to understand that repression is one

specific type of defence that can only be associated with castration anxiety, which

can be observed from the phallic stage onwards, and that the Ego has at its

disposal many other mechanisms that are defences other than repression, being

able to relate specific mechanisms with certain types of illnesses. In this sense, on

the same paper Freud mentions some of these other mechanisms such as:

Reaction-Formation, Regression, Undoing what has been done and Isolating.

These three would be strongly related to obsessional neuroses.

2. Anna Freud

Anna Freud had similar perspectives around psychic development in relation to her

father. Since Sigmund Freud would focus on adult analysis and try to track back

the origins of psychopathology to infancy, Anna Freud though it would be possible

to actually observe the theoretical phenomena of psychoanalysis in children. In this

way, she would develop a double approach to her work, this is, direct observations

of children with a psychoanalytic lens (Pretorius, 2016). Additionally, her father

would dedicate his lifework to the understanding of neuroses and other “illnesses”,

and so Anna Freud thought it was fundamental for psychoanalytic theory to first

know what would be considered normal development to make the recognition of

pathology possible and accurate (Pretorius, 2016). Anna Freud knew the

importance of the agency of Ego in the path of adaptation to external reality and in

1936 she published her book “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence”, providing

an exhaustive study on these matters. In this sense, Nick Midgley (2013) would

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say that her contribution regarded one particular aspect of the ego’s functioning,

being its role in relation to the mechanisms of defence. At the same time Midgley

(2013) states:

“Although Anna Freud accepted Freud’s definition of the mechanisms of defence

as ‘all the techniques which the ego makes use of in conflicts which may lead to a

neurosis“(S. Freud, 1926: 163), in the course of her book she expands the

meaning of the term, looking at the ways in which the mind protects itself from all

kinds of painful or unpleasant feelings (not just conflicts), both in the course of

normal development and in neurosis (p.59).

In her book (1936/1993) Anna Freud said that although it is true that repression

has an exceptional position among the defence mechanisms, it is important to

acknowledge all of them in their particular contribution. In this sense, she believed

that repression may be specific to protect the ego from sexual wishes while the rest

of them would work for other sorts of instinctual processes or to complete what

repression may have left undone.

Midgley (2013) states that psychoanalysis has considered superego anxiety to be

of central importance when understanding neurosis and that it was Anna Freud

who pointed out that superego anxiety is only one of the triggers for the ego’s

defensive activity. Midgley (2013) adds that Anna Freud suggested that for young

children, the greatest threat to the ego’s survival comes from ‘objective anxiety’

meaning all those very real dangers that threaten the child, from the earliest fear of

losing the loved object, to the fear of losing the love of the object. This would mean

that whatever the source of the danger may be, internal or external, the reason it

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activates the ego’s defence mechanisms is because it is experienced as something

unpleasant or painful.

Furthermore, according to Laplanche and Pontalis (1973/1988) the list of Anna

Freud’s defence mechanism(s) includes some of her father and colleagues’ ideas:

Repression, Regression, Reaction-Formation, Isolation, Undoing, Projection,

Introjection, Turning against the self, Reversal into the opposite and Sublimation

where not developed by her but she recognized their relevance. According to the

same authors she personally added: Denial in phantasy, idealization and

Identification with the aggressor.

Perhaps the last one may be one of Anna Freud’s most famous and relevant

creations for psychoanalytic theory and clinical work. In On her book published in

1936 she would state the following about “Identification with the Aggressor”: “the

mechanism of identification or introjection is combined with a second important

mechanism. By impersonating the aggressor, assuming his attributes or imitating

his aggression, the child transforms himself from the person threatened into the

person who makes the threat” (p.230).

For Midgley (2013) the importance of this concept lays in the possibility of

providing a way of understanding the many games of make-believe and

impersonation that children play, also allowing a new way of thinking about

children’s aggression. For him the concept also made clear that the mechanisms of

defence could be seen as identical whether someone is dealing with a threat from

inside or one from outside; in either case, the threat or danger is identified and the

ego activates some form of defence, with the aim of reducing the threat and

thereby avoiding pain or unpleasure. Most importantly, he says, the concept of

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‘identification with the aggressor’ also provides a way of thinking about the normal

process of early superego development: by internalizing a threatening object, a

child takes the criticism inside, even if the offence is externalized.

Conclusion

This essay has described the historical transformation suffered by the concepts of

anxiety and defence along Freud’s thinking from its beginning to its end,

concluding with his daughter’s, Anna Freud, contributions to the understanding of

defence mechanisms.

The role of anxiety has been transversal to Freud’s theory from its conception as

the derivative of libidinal wishes to a sign related to castration anxiety, meaning the

fear of losing a loved object.

In the transformation of these concepts, Freud became to conclude that anxiety is

an affect felt by the agency of the ego which displays defence mechanisms to

protect the psyche from suffering.

Anna Freud developed a systematic study of defence mechanisms describing

several different processes that respond to diverse requirements of the psyche and

this essay highlights the “Identification with the Aggressor” as one of her most

important contributions to psychoanalytic theory for its clinical implications.

Reading the development of psychoanalytic theory based on observations that

kept actualizing and making it possible to re-think previous assumptions can be

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truly enriching. This is a practice than can allow clinicians to permanently reflect on

their work.

Understanding Freud’s process of thinking on its conception of anxiety and

defence, illustrates the normality of psychic conflict and helps to depathologize

and stop attributing psychic suffering to an individual source, since after all, what

can support a healthy affective life is in the inter-subjectivity of relationships,

meaning the capacity to love and be loved.

References

Freud, A. (1993). The ego and the mechanisms of defence (1st ed.). London:

Karnac Books. (Original work published in 1936)

Freud, S. (1955). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of

Sigmund Freud Vol. 2 (1893-1895): Studies on hysteria. In J. Strachey (Ed.

and Trans.). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published in 1895).

Freud, S. (1958). The case of Schreber; papers on technique and other works. (1st

ed.). In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) London: Hogarth Press and the Institute

of Psycho-analysis. (Original work published in 1912)

Freud, S. (1959). Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. In J. Strachey (Ed. and

Trans.) London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published in 1926)

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Freud, S. (1961). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of

Sigmund Freud Vol. 19: The Ego and The Id. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.).

London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923)

Freud, S. (1964). New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis (1st ed.). In J.

Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) London: Hogarth press. (Original work published in

1933)

Quinodoz, J. (2005). Reading Freud (1st ed.). In David Alcorn (Ed. and Trans.)

Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. (Original work published in 2004)

Laplanche, J. & Pontalis, J. (1988). The language of psycho-analysis (1st ed.).

London: Karnac. (Original work published in 1973)

Midgley, N. (2013). Reading Anna Freud (1st ed.). London: Routledge.

Pretorius, I. (2016). Classical psychoanalytic view of infancy: Anna Freud.

[Powerpoint Slides]. Retrived from:

https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/mod/folder/view.php?id=978561.

Sandler, J. Holder, A., Dare, C. and Dreher, A. (1997). Freud's models of the mind

(1st ed.). London: Karnac Books.

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