compulsion to repeat

is a defense mechanism whereby a patient does not remember what he has forgotten or repressed but acts it out. He reproduces the memory not as a memory, but as an action... he repeats without knowing it.

There are some cases which behave like those under the hypnotic technique up to a point and only later cease to do so... but others behave differently from the beginning. If we confine ourselves to this second type in order to bring out the difference, we may say that the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, but acts it out. He reproduces it not as a memory but as an action... he repeats it, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it. (Freud 'remembering' 'complete' : 2501)

is, in contrast to mere remembering which gives the impression of an experiment carried out in the laboratory, a kind of conjuring up of a piece of real life. It is dangerous, risky, contemptible.

Remembering, as it was induced in hypnosis, could not but give the impression of an experiment carried out in the laboratory. Repeating, as it is induced in analytic treatment according to the newer technique, on the other hand, implies conjuring up a piece of real life... and for that reason it cannot always be harmless and unobjectionable. This consideration opens up the whole problem of what is so often unavoidable 'deterioration during treatment'. (Freud 'remembering' 'complete' : 2503)

is played out in analysis rather than talked about. It is played out for example, when the patient does not remember that he used to be defiant to his parents and is now acting similarly to the doctor.

For instance, the patient does not say that he remembers that he used to be defiant and critical towards his parents' authority... instead, he behaves in that way to the doctor. He does not remember how he came to a helpless and hopeless deadlock in his infantile sexual researches... but he produces a mass of confused dreams and associations, complains that he cannot succeed in anything and asserts that he is fated never to carry through what he undertakes. He does not remember having been intensely ashamed of certain sexual activities and afraid of their being found out... but he makes it clear that he is ashamed of the treatment on which he is now embarked and tries to keep it secret from everybody. And so on. (Freud 'remembering' 'complete' : 2501)

is played out when the patient repeats (or re-enacts) instead of remembering and telling, and as such, repeats under the condition of resistance.

We have learnt that the patient repeats instead of remembering, and repeats under the conditions of resistance. (Freud 'remembering' 'complete' : 2502)

is rendered harmless, and indeed useful, when we give it the right to assert itself in 'a definite field', admitting it into transference as a playground.

We render the compulsion harmless, and indeed useful, by giving it the right to assert itself in a definite field. We admit it into the transference as a playground in which it is allowed to expand in almost complete freedom and in which it is expected to display to us everything in the way of pathogenic instincts that is hidden in the patient's mind. Provided only that the patient shows compliance enough to respect the necessary conditions of the analysis, we regularly succeed in giving all the symptoms of the illness a new transference meaning and in replacing his ordinary neurosis by a 'transference-neurosis' of which he can be cured by the therapeutic work.

is successfully subverted by the analysist when she is able to divert the impulses the patient tries to direct into action (as repetition) back into the psychical sphere (as the work of remembering in the therapeutic context).

He is prepared for a perpetual struggle with his patient to keep in the psychical sphere all the impulses which the patient would like to direct into the motor sphere... and he celebrates it as a triumph for the treatment if he can bring it about that something that the patient wishes to discharge in action is disposed of through the work of remembering. If the attachment through transference has grown into something at all serviceable, the treatment is able to prevent the patient from executing any of the more important repetitive actions and to utilize his intention to do so in statu nascendi as material for the therapeutic work.

is the acting out of everything that has made its way from the sources of the repressed into his manifest personality, be that inhibitions, unserviceable attitudes, or pathological character-traits.

We may now ask what it is that he in fact repeats or acts out. The answer is that he repeats everything that has already made its way from the sources of the repressed into his manifest personality his inhibitions and unserviceable attitudes and his pathological character-traits. He also repeats all his symptoms in the course of the treatment. And now we can see that in drawing attention to the compulsion to repeat we have acquired no new fact but only a more comprehensive view. (Freud 'remembering' 'complete' : 2502)

is turned into a motive for remembering through nothing other than transference.

The main instrument, however, for curbing the patient's compulsion to repeat and for turning it into a motive for remembering lies in the handling of the transference. (Freud 'remembering' 'complete' : 2505)

compulsion to repeat, n.Definitions

compulsion to repeat