VOL. 30, No. 1.

January, 1923

T H E PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW II

REPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY *

-v
BY JAMES L. MURSELL '{<
Lake Erie College •£

It is the task of the present study to outline a psycho- ?t

logical account of the three concepts of repression, release K
and normality which hold a fundamental place in psycho- f>
analytic theory. To-day there is an evident tendency for |
lines of treatment in psychiatry and psychology to converge. £
Psychology is developing definitely in the direction of dy- ]£
namic explanations and theories. And the psychoanalysis of j;
the American school at least is dealing more and more in %;
terms of the organism and human behavior. And so, in spite :',,
of many unfortunate antagonisms and misunderstandings, <K
the time seems at hand when it will be possible to subsume I:
the findings of the pathologists under a single science of j
mental life, with great and obvious systematic and practical /.':
advantage to both sides. >
At the outset it is necessary to make a note on termi-
nology. The distinction is often made between repression ,':
and suppression, suppressed tendencies grading from clear •
to vague consciousness, and repressed tendencies from vague \
conciousness to unconsciouness. Such a distinction has its "<'
importance in the classification of the neuroses. For this *"
discussion, however, it is not significant, and I use the term
repression to cover all the phenomena. .{
I. REPRESSION »
A repressed tendency may be described as one that has (;
ceased to be fully conscious, but which nevertheless directly *
Printed in Germany Z V

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 $>*• • r '
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%\ a JAMES L. MURSELL
? conditions behavior and experience. This is precisely equiv-
alent to what Rivers means by dissociation when he writes:
•• "A dissociated body of experience is one which is separated
from experience readily accessible to consciousness by some
kind of obstacle only to be overcome under special conditions,
such as sleep or hypnosis." 1 One of the crudest errors in
interpreting psychoanalytic ideas is that any frustrated
tendency necessarily becomes repressed. This, however
is a suggestion often encountered in psychological discussions.
A great many elements in mental life which undergo frus-
tration are not repressed, but merely forgotten. They may
still affect behavior and experience, but unlike repressed
elements, do so only indirectly by their modifying effect upon
habit structures. Thus such a criticism as that of Wood-
worth,* to the effect that mere forgetting is much more
common than repression, is beside the point. Every psycho-
analyst would admit it. What we have to do is to analyze the
special nature of repression as just described, and the con-
ditions under which it occurs.
It i6 of the first importance that we appreciate at the
; outset how absolutely essential is the notion of repression
to psychoanalysis. Burrow quotes Freud as asserting at the
Fourth Psychoanalytic Conference: " I t is not the dis-
covery and counting and tabulation of complexes that is
^ the object of psychoanalysis, but the sole object of psycho-
analysis is the overcoming of the patient's resistances." And
\ later he himself goes on to say: " . . . the meaning of psy-
• choanalysis becomes synonymous with the psychology of
resistances."* The startling views of sex associated in most
minds with this school, while they have their important
; place in the scheme, have measurably deflected attention from
the crucial point. If there be no such thing as repression
then psychoanalytic therapy and psychoanalytic theory
l
i W. H. R. Riven, 'Why is the Unconscious Unconscious?' JBrit. J. of PsyckoL*
\ 7 9 . 9. »38.8
* R. S. Woodworth, 'Some Criticisms of the Freudian Psychology,' / . of Abnorm.
Psyehol., 1918, la, 174.
•Trigant Burrow, "The Meaning of Psychoanalysis,' / . of Abnorm. Piyclol.,
7 ^ , « » . S3-
 REPRESSION, RELEASE JND NORMJUTY 3 1

collapse. It should be said with emphasis that no psycho-

logical evaluation of psychoanalytic concepts which ignores
repression—and there have been many such—is worthy of
the least consideration. :'
Our objective, then, is to work out an account of repression
which shall really square with and explain the facts. In \
doing so we shall first pass in review a number of criticisms • j
of the notion, and then a number of partial positive theories.
But before we come to thi6 it seems advisable briefly to mar- •;
shal the evidence that is offered in support of the notion. >
There are four main groups of facts which it is claimed go j
to support the hypothesis of repression. First, there are ::
errors of various kinds, such as slips of the tongue and pen, I
forgetting, and so forth, through which the repressed ele- j
ments are said to come to the surface of behavior. Second, t
there are dreams, which it is said are invariably wish-ful- >
nllments. Third, there are the psychoneuroses. Fourth, f.
there are the phenomena of hypnosis which engaged the
attention of earlier workers, and which have recently been
used experimentally with positive results. It is worth while
specifically noting that we cannot accept as serious evidence
those fanciful analyses of literature, folk-lore, art, religion, ";.
and what-not which have been produced with such fecundity '''
under the general inspiration of the psychoanalytic method. '.•,
When I come to deal with the concept of release I shall
have occasion to examine in some detail the first three of .
these groups of phenomena, and I shall ask in what precise
sense repression and escape from repression are involved in
each case. My present question, however, is whether the
hypothesis of repression is feasible as an explanation of these
facts. Freud's point of view is that on general scientific
principles we must assume a cause for any class of phenomena,
that no other adequate cause has ever been suggested for
these, and that while the account he has to offer may not
be final and perfect, it is a genuine explanation at least up to
a certain point. There has arisen "a body of criticism which
denies this claim, and I turn to it before coming to a positive
study of the nature of repression, which I believe makes it
possible to improve upon the Freudian notion.
4 JAMES L. MURSELL

A. Extreme criticism would reject repression as an expla-

nation of the above-mentioned facts on the ground of inherent
inconceivability. Among the mass of more or less intelligent
and relevant comment, three main points emerge. Wood-
worth, in commenting on the censor, argues that since very-
powerful tendencies are driven into the unconscious, this
must be the work of an agency still more powerful, and
asking whence the censor derives such power, finds no answer.1
I doubt if this is in reality a very serious puzzle, even as we
find it stated here. For presumably the censor represents
the general sanctions of morality, and one should be able to
account for its being 'powerful' enough. But quite apart
from this, it seems a sufficient rebuttal to point out that the
analogy of physical force is both gratuitous and misleading.
It presupposes a dynamic relationship in experience which
cannot be imagined to subsist. A second criticism which
Woodworth makes is that we cannot believe that an instinc-
tive drive actuates behavior foreign to it, as the theory of
sublimation at least would perhaps involve. Here the
sufficient, though again not the complete reply is that we do
not have to use the concept of instinct at all. It is true that
we read a good deal about instinct in psychoanalytic dis-
cussion, but as a matter of fact the writers use the term
very loosely, and would do better without it, as they leave
themselves open to attack on an unessential point. The
third, and by far the most important critical point, is ex-
pressed by Woodworth as follows: "Freud is apparently
guilty of yet another error in supposing that any specific wish,
ungratified, lives on as the same, identical, precise wish." 3
The question of how repressed tendencies maintain their
identity and persist—why, that is, they are repressed and
not merely forgotten, is a systematic point of the highest
importance. No brief reply is possible, and this consider-
ation will orient our whole positive discussion of repression.
B. More moderate criticism would rate the evidence for
repression as inconclusive. Repressions, it is said, may exist,
1
R . S. Woodworth, 'Some Criticism* of the Freudian Psychology.'
1
R . S. Woodworth, 'Psychology,' p. 568.
 REPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY 5

but their effect is very difficult to determine precisely and is

probably not so important as the psychoanalysts suggest.
Thus Stephen writes: "Now I would not dispute that
what are called repressions may in fact have a very serious '-f
effect on the psychic condition of the subject. What I do ••_
feel inclined to dispute is that every abnormal state of mind \
which leads to the discovery in the subject of a repression I
is necessarily the result of that repression."1 And Wood-
worth argues in several connections that owing to the com- I
plexity and wealth of an individual's associative connections, I
the method of free association can never validly establish a j>
causal connection between an abnormal psychical event and \
s determinate complex. He insists that free associations j
are 'easy running* and may lead anywhere. As against this |
we may say first that a psychoanalysis is no haphazard !>
exploration of a jungle of free associations, but that it has a f
recognisable objective and stops when this is reached. And ;"•
secondly Woodworth's view of free association looks very !':
much like pure indeterminism. ]:
These criticisms then do not render untenable the hy- '{
pothesis of repression as an explaining concept. And out <:*•
of them arises the very important systematic problem of the *
continued identity of repressed elements—how 'any specific ^
wish, ungratified, lives on as the same precise identical wish,' '".
a problem which the theory of repression has to consider. y.
In turning now to the consideration of the positive nature •?.'
of repression I raise two general questions, first as to the v
mechanism and second as to the occasioning of repression. •'
I. The Mechanism of Repression.—We review a number i
of attempts to deal with this problem. f>
(a) The trouble with the notion of the endopsychic lv
censor is that it is a poor principle of explanation. Freud i-:
himself uses it so carefully that obvious and crude pbjections 'f
fall to the ground. "The term'dxeam censor' is no more than ]•<
a very convenient phrase for a dynamic relationship."2 "*
'Adrian Stephen, 'On the Awumptioni of the Ptychoanalystt,' / . of Abnonti. |;
Psychol., 1918,13,18-19. fi
'Sigmund Freud, 'A General Introduction to Psychoanalynw,' p. X14. -Jv
6 JJMES L. MURSELL

Here we have no ill-considered personification, and attack

along this line can only be against a man of straw. But the
idea of the censor leaves far too much unexplained. Even
within its own special province it is often partially overcome,
as in the anxiety dream. Furthermore, the censorship is
extremely variable, notably of course as between sleep and
waking, and this itself needs explaining. Lastly it in no way
touches our central problem of the continued identity of
repressions. We are forced back of the 'convenient phrase,'
to a further analysis of the 'dynamic relationship/ and
cannot regard the notion as at all adequate.
(b) A number of explanations along biological lines have
been advanced which are decidedly unsatisfactory, and of
these I consider two. The view of Rivers is that unconscious
elements are the cruder impulses properly belonging to an
earlier stage of development, and that these are repressed by
the more finely graded functions superimposed upon them.
This, however, seems far from satisfactory. The phyletic
analogies which reinforce the idea seem hardly relevant. The
separation between the epicritic and protopathic functions,
which is drawn from specialized neurological research, is
hardly tenable of behavior as a whole. And the whole theory
seems somewhat too far removed from the actual facts—
errors, dreams, hypnosis, and the psychoneu roses—which
it is designed to cover.
The second theory, which deserves only the most passing
reference, is that of pseudohermaphroditism, which would
make repression a direct and demonstrable consequence of
our phyletic history. Whatever its morphological value,
perhaps the most charitable comment on its psychological
significance is that it is fanciful. The derivation of character
traits from a conflict between masculinity and femininity
in the individual is somewhat far removed from the possi-
bility of factual verification.
(c) Kempf has worked out an explanation of repression
in terms of a theory of the autonomic functions. "When an
affective craving or particular autonomic disposition is
prevented from attaining adequate neutralization a heightened

I
 I
REPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY 7 |

postural tension in that particular autonomic segment, as £

in the anxious tensions that follow the loss of a love-object, ;,•
seems to persist. It then exerts a constant pressure to be \
relieved. . . . As an affect-producing mechanism the hy- %
pertense autonomic division may be said to be repressed when &
it is not permitted to make the organism conscious or aware %
of its needs."1 Of this account two criticisms are relevant j-
here. First, in so far as it tends to separate out the autonomic \
as against the projicient system, and to make it primary and i
the other secondary, it is dealing in abstractions. As Watson f
remarks, despite the phyletic primacy of the autonomic as {•
against the proficient, to-day the tail wags the dog. Second, ft
Kempf is not able to cite convincing facts to show that the f>
v
autonomic disturbance m a y persist indefinitely as it presum-
ably would h a v e t o do t o maintain a repression of long stand-
ing, and thus the fundamental systematic difficulty noted
by Woodworth is not met.
(d) According to Watson, the phenomena of dissociation
are to be taken in terms of habit distortion. " . . . we can
have a diseased personality arising through habit distortion—
distortion carried to the point where compensatory factors
(serviceable habits) are not sufficient to carry the individual
along in society. He is out of touch with his environment
and unless help is given him he will most certainly go down
under competition." * The persistence of infantile forms of
sexual behavior would on this hypothesis merely be the per-
sistence of habits no longer appropriate to the needs and
status of the adult. This is indubitable as far as it goes,
but its adequacy is open to question. Taking Watson's own
illustration of the mother whose mental stability was sen-
ously threatened when she was no longer able to sleep with
her grown son, we have more than mere habit distortion as
ordinarily understood. We have more than a negation or
absence of adjustment, but positive maladjustment, that is,
a craving. And I think this would/be so for all pathological
cases.
1
E . J. Kempf, "The Autonomic Function* and the Personality,' pp. 139-140.
1
John B. Watton, 'Psychology,' p. 419.
8 JAMES L. MURSELL

The last two views, however, directly suggest what seems

like an adequate and correct account. An autonomic dis-
turbance tends, as Kempf explains, towards neutralization.
But if the effort at satisfaction fails, then this piece of behavior
which at the time tended in the right direction, may become
fixated as a habit. And such a habit will make towards the
constant reinforcement of the underlying autonomic dis-
turbance. This would adequately explain how a repression
might persist for a length of time without losing its identity,
for we would account for this in terms of the general fixation
tendencies of the organism. And, furthermore, we have here
a theory which seems able to cover all the facts. A further
analysis of repression will bring in reinforcing evidence in
favor of it, and we shall find that it leads to a workable
account of the nature of release.
2. The Occasioning of Repression.—It is often difficult
to glean from general works on psychoanalysis just what type
of situations give rise to repressions, or what kind of tenden-
cies are likely to be repressed. Freud's own generalisation,
though not unilluminating, lacks specificity. "The tenden-
cies . . . against which the dream censor directs itself
must now be described, . . . one can say only that these
tendencies are those of an objectionable nature, that they
are shocking from an ethical and aesthetic point of view,
that they are things one does not dare even to think, or
thinks of only with abhorrence. These censored wishes
which have attained to a distorted expression in the dream,
are above all expressions of a boundless, reckless egoism."1
Now according to this, almost any given wish may be re-
pressed, for on occasion almost anything may appear 'shock-
ing.' According to Rivers the war neuroses arose out of re-
pressed tendencies towards self-preservation, which are
not ordinarily in the least 'shocking.' The point of course
is that repression operates against any tendencies conflicting
with the existing social code. This is its occasion.
That the social environment is of determining importance
here has been pretty well recognised, but so far as I know the
1
Sigmund Freud, 'A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis,' p. 115.
 REPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY 9

precise principle of its operation has never been formulated.

Yet it is clearly indicated in the fact that the prevailing
tendency of our deepest and most persistent repressions is
sexual. Why is it that it is above all the sexual wish that
is 'shocking,' or that 'a boundless, reckless egoism' is es-
pecially apt to work out along this line?
It is because of the peculiar ambivalent attitude of so-
ciety to sexual behavior, in that it at once incites and regu-
lates it. Interesting testimony as to the volume and con-
stancy of sexual stimuli which impinge upon us day by day,
not clearly recognised, but assuredly not ineffective, is found
in the fact that in parts of South Africa certain types of
advertising of feminine wearing apparel have to be forbidden
on account of its effect on the blacks. What to a white man
trained to civilized usage means little or nothing may to an
unsophisticated semi-savage be incitement to rape.
On the one hand, then, the social environment is per-
petually suggesting sexual activity. On the other hand it
not so much suppresses as regulates it. This is done charac-
teristically by setting up norms of conduct for different age-
groups and sex-groups. Behavior, say of an exhibitionistic
type, which is allowable in the prepubescent, is frowned upon
in the pubescent. Again society in effect (whatever may be
urged by moralists to the contrary) condones behavior in the
pubescent boy which would be highly reprehensible and con-
spicuously abnormal and disgusting in the adult. Again we
may cite the tendency to wink at the sowing of 'wild oats'
at a certain time of life, which after marriage becomes quite
another matter. The 'double standard' of morality is also
a case in point. Or again one might mention the numerous
and ironclad conventions which surround engagement and
marriage. Of course there are other activities which are
regulated in something the same way, but not, I think, to at
all the same extent or with the same minuteness as this. In
order to avoid perpetual conflict* wjith his environment the
individual has to readjust and alter his sexual habits many
times, and in many directions.
Now here it is obvious that we have the stage well set
IO JJMSS L MUXSELL

for habit distortion in Watson's sense. An earlier set of

habits mil not do later on, or in a different situation. And
then too we are dealing with a type of behavior characterised
by autonomic disturbances only exceeded by those of hunger,
at least in normal life. And so arises a dangerous situation.
All the occasioning factors for repression as we have come to
understand it, are present. The various social norms may-
fit the normal development of the individual fairly well.
But educational instruments are not perfect and parents
not omniscient, and the transition from stage to stage may be
forced or retarded, or otherwise complicated. And here we
find the direct occasion of repression. Wefindthis not in the
inherent character of the sexual or other impulses, but in
the nature of the social environment as it imposes itself on
the individual, with its unique combination of reinforcement
and regulation. Repression is a function of the integration
of a developing personality in the social environment, and
here we seem to have a notion theoretically sound, and mean-
ingful both for psychology and psychiatry.

II. RELEASE
To understand what is involved in the concept of release
it will be necessary to consider in some detail the cases where
it is alleged to operate.
I. Errors, Slips of the Tongue and Pen, Memory Failures,
Etc.—Freud considers that all these represent the release of
some repressed wish. Such a universal statement is of
course very difficult to prove. It may well be that many
errors are due merely to some 6uch factor as perseveration—
we must be on our guard against saying that they are mere
accidents. And equally we must be on our guard against
merely fanciful explanations to which the inaccurate use of
psychoanalytic notions undoubtedly tends. But if an in-
vestigation is competently performed—that is, if some given
error is analysed down to a point where the subject recog-
nizes a complex as causal—it would seem hard to deny that a
case has been made. And if a conclusion is confirmed by
further observation, that case is strengthened. An instance
 REPRESSION, RELEASE JND NORMdUTY IX

of this would be that of the wife who failed to recognize her

husband on the street, and whose marriage was later broken
off in distressing circumstances. We can hardly doubt that
many, though probably not all errors really involve release,
that is, the outworking of a repression through substitute
material.
2. Dreams.—Woodworth would apparently call in ques-
tion the almost classic dictum that dreams are the express-
ions of repressed wishes. His most important systematic
argument is stated as follows: "The objection to Freud's
theory of dreams is that he fails to see how easy-running
the association or recall mechanism is.. It isn't necessary
to look for big, mysterious driving forces, when we know that
A makes you think of B, and 3 of C, with the greatest ease.
The di earner isn't laboring, he is idly playing, and his images
come largely by free association with personal desires giving
some steer.'* The reply is threefold. First, the idea of
'big, mysterious driving forces' is one that can hardly be
entertained in psychology at all. Force is a concept of
doubtful validity in physics, and in psychology it is impossible.
Thus this particular point is irrelevant. Second, to repeat
what has already been remarked, this view of free association
seems to involve indeterminism. It is association that is
'free' not in the laboratory sense of proceeding without
instruction, but in the metaphysical sense of being uncaused.
The mere fact that association is 'free' or 'easy-running'
does not absolve us from trying to explain it. Third, this
criticism simply ignores the large number of cases of dream
interpretation that have been accumulated. And facts
cannot be treated cavalierly in the ' high option way' just
because one does not like them. Tannenbaum assembles
the evidence that dreams are releases of complexes under the
following points among others. He says that the dreams
of childhood are manifestly and^irectly wish-fulfilling; that
many dreams not so obviously witfh-fulfilling can easily be
shown to belong to this class; that anticipation and con-
solation dreams are further evidence of the Freudian view;
1
R . S. Woodworth, 'Psychology,' p. 507.
12 JAMES L. MU&SELL

that the only explanation of many dreams of the satisfaction

of bodily needs, hunger, thirst, etc., is that they fulfill wishes
and make possible the continuance of sleep; that thinly dis-
guised sexual dreams are familiar to everyone's experience;
that thousands of applications of the free association method
to the dreams of adults have shown that these have a latent
content; that experiments with the use of hypnosis, where
it is suggested that the subject dreams something afford
direct evidence of dream distortion. And he asks why, if
we assume that all psychical events are caused, we should
refuse to admit this of dreams as well.1 Once more then we
must conclude that in the dream we have a genuine instance
of release, in that the repression makes use of substitute
material.
3. The Psychoneuroses.—These are generally admitted
to be mechanisms of release. It should be remarked that
if we admit these, the case against the dream is very much
weakened. For Freud has successfully shown the close analogy
between the dream and the neurosis. Woodworth, it is true,
tries to make a distinction by saying that the neurosis is
heavily charged with emotion, and the dream is not. But
this is hardly in line with the facts. A nightmare may be
powerfully emotional while in some neurotic cases there seems
little affective disturbance evident. In the neuroses, of
course, we have the very best picture of release, for here
the dissociated elements are relatively speaking in full charge,
and the substitutions very elaborate and striking.
It will be seen from these three types of cases that true
release involves a complexity of which no explicit account has
yet been given, for always we have the use of substitute
material. Now our view of repression sufficiently explains
how it is possible for an element to maintain its identity and
at the same time express itself in varying material—that
is, for instance, how a series of dreams may differ widely in
manifest content, but remain identical in latent content.
The distorted habit set is continually subjected to the subtle
1
S . A. Tannenbaum, 'Some Current MUconceptions of Psychoanalywi,' / . 0/
Abnorm. Pjychot., 1917-18, M, 39a
 JtEPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY 13

and pervasive pressure of the social environment. It cannot

then remain exactly the same in all details. Exhibitionism,
for instance, cannot wholly retain its crude infantile form.
The change, however, will not be ..o radical as to involve a
satisfactory readjustment of the whole personality and a
neutralization of the affective tension. We shall have to
discuss cases where this occurs in a moment, and shall find
them so different from the instances we have been discussing
that it seems hardly proper to say that they involve true
release at all. In general true release is the partial con-
ditioning of a distorted habit set. This formulation seems
preferable to that of Kempf, who would speak merely of the
conditioning of the affect itself. As we have seen, the bare
affect is more or less an abstraction. And certainly we have
very little idea of how an affect may become conditioned, if
at all. Furthermore, it is much more satisfactory than the
account of Freud, who does little more than assert the fact
of release without attempting a rigorous analysis of its psy-
chological mechanism.
I now consider two types of alleged release—successful
psychoanalytic treatment, and sublimation—which involve
a very different structure.
Kempf describes a successful psychoanalysis as follows:
"When through the psychoanalytic method, because of free-
dom from restraint, the repressed (forgotten) painful expe-
rience is recalled, a disturbance of the patient's behavior
occurs. After the affect has been permitted to readjust
itself, as in anger, by saying whatever the inclination requires,
the patient often adds something about being relieved,
or 'feeling better.' Symptoms of function derangement, as
well as persistent thoughts, disappear and the individual
gives many indications of having made an affective read-
justment, in which the hypertense or hypotense condition
of some viscus, such as the bladder, stomach or vocal chords,
disappeared as the organ resumed its normal functions." 1
I think then that we must decide as against Woodworth
that the treatment is really effective and lives up to its pre-
1
E. J. Kempf, "The Autonomic Function* and the Personality,' p. 118.
14 JAMES L MUXSBLL

tention8. It is no haphazard exploration of lawless free

associations, but works down to recognizable, and demon-
strably causal complexes. And the pragmatic argument
which he repudiates holds water inasmuch as psychoanalysis
relieves cases which are untouched by other methods, at
least where time and opportunity make possible a thorough-
going treatment. But I do not think we can say that we
find in it release proper. The situation is entirely different
from that in errors, dreams, and the neuroses. We do not'
find the characteristic compromise formations making their
appearance. Affective readjustment 'as in anger, by saying
whatever the inclination requires' is compensation, not
compromise. And secondly the whole status and relation-
ship of the subject is highly special and unique. The patient
is in intimate and sympathetic rapport with the practitioner.
In effect the psychoanalyst is the representative who sym-
pathetically mediates to the patient die demands and stand-
ards of normal life and the social environment. Instead
of fearing that his sysmptons (distorted, partially conditioned
habit sets) will be met with uncomprehending hostility, the
patient finds society, in the person of his physician, sympa-
thetic, comprehending, and helpful. It is his chance to
readjust effectively to a normal level of behavior. This
situation is recognized in the important notion of affective
transfer as between patient and practitioner. Thus, in
essence, the psychoanalytic seance is the creation of a sympa-
thetic atmosphere in which repressions are not so much
released as conquered and superseded. Here again Freud's
words are significant: " . . . the sole object of psycho-
analysis is the overcoming of the patient's resistances."
In sublimation we have an exceedingly vague concept.
For a standard definition we may cite Bridges. "Sublima-
tion (is) expression of the repressed wish in a socially ser-
viceable way, as in art, poetry or religion."1 The vagueness
lies above all in the words 'socially serviceable.' Sublima-
tion among savages might take the form of human sacrifice,
among feudsmen, of the extermination of an enemy's family,
1
J . W. Bridget, 'An Outline of Abnormal P.ychology,' p. 38.
 REPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY 1$

among criminals, of murder or robbery. These things are

not at all socially serviceable in the sense in which we ordi-
narily find the notion of sublimation worked out, but in their
essential structure they might be sublimations. The central
point is that sublimation is the successful expression of re-
pressed elements in the existing social medium.
Now in our cases of true release we have always found
social maladjustments. And when we come to successful and
triumphant social adjustment, the relation between the al-
leged repressions and their consequences is by no means clear.
It should be noted that sublimation cannot be thought of as
compensation. A shattered love affair may lead to a burst of
hard work, but it is impossible to prove satisfactorily that
the work is erotically motivated. Rather it arises from the
desire to forget. We have compensation, not sublimation.
The truth is that sublimation is fundamentally a mis-
leading idea. Let us begin with a very favorable instance.
We will imagine an impotent individual who becomes a great
inventor (creator). The familiar explanation is that here
we have a sublimation of the creative impulse. But this
can never be proved. We have postulated a picturesque
dynamic relationship without a particle of real evidence.
And this is a very favorable instance indeed. When we come
to accounts of the religious behavior or aesthetic interests
of normal people as sublimations of the sexual instinct, the
affair becomes merely ludicrous. Not only is it impossible
to find any direct substantiation of the interpretation, but
the logic of the whole suggestion is untenable. The idea is,
of course, that such individuals have successfully adjusted
all their repressions. But so far as one can tell, no repressions
—that is, no distorted habit sets accompanied by cravings—
ever existed. When the habit structures are progressively
adjusted to social and environmental requirements, or in
other words, when we have affective progression, repressions
simply do not occur to any important degree. To regard
religion and art merely as elements icr a mental hygiene with-
out which we would inevitably be neurotics is gratuitous
to say the least. True mental hygiene consists in continuous
16 JJMES L. MURSELL

successful adjustment to social reality at each stage of life.

It is preposterous to try to explain behaviors in terms of
release, when the very structure of the behavior in question
reveals nothing to be released, because nothing has been
repressed.
Our conclusion then is that neither in psychoanalytic
therapy nor in sublimation is there any true release. The
well-sublimated personality is merely the normal, well-ad-
justed personality, which escapes habit distortions, and in
which affective hypertensions and hypotensions cannot long
be maintained.
III. NORMALITY
The rapid development of psychiatry makes the question
of the constitution of normal personality exceedingly inter-
esting and important. The psychologist asks whether there
is any essential difference between the normal and the ab-
normal, and whether we are to deal with the normal in terms
of the abnormal or vice versa. The pyschiatrist has a concern
with the nature of normality, since normal personality is
always the ideal present in his treatments of cases.
William Allan White in many places insists that the ab-
normal is nothing more than the unusual, and denies any
essential internal difference. Surely, however, to bring a
low-grade moron, Shakespeare, and a dementia praecox case
under one category is to ignore vital distinctions. We may
perhaps narrow the scope of our general question by accepting
Goddard's distinction between psychopathy and abnormality
in the sense of unusual I.Q. Thus we come to ask what is
psychopathy.
Janet's point of view, which would make effective control
by the higher psychical functions (high psychic or neural
tension), the characteristic of normality, would suggest an
essential difference between the psychopath and the normal.
So too would our analysis of sublimation, for we found that
the well-sublimated personality fails to exhibit the mechanism
of repression and release to any important degree. We must,
.however, be very much on our guard against saying that a
 REPRESSION, RELEASE AND NORMALITY 17

normal individual is one who has no repressions and who needs

no avenues of true release. For everyone dreams, everyone
makes errors, and most of us enjoy and perpetrate jokes.
Nevertheless we have a criterion. If the substitute forma-
tions in release are such that they never clash with the social
environment, we have no psychopathy. As soon, however,
as the individual begins to withdraw from social reality we
are in the danger zone. In fact the profundity of the dis-
turbance can be measured in terms of this withdrawal.
" . . . the neurotic strives for power, the psychotic is the
emperor, the President of the United States." 1 Indeed the
psychoneuroses have been classified as benign or pernicious
according to the depth of this withdrawal from social reality.
The ordinary dream is not a pathological phenomenon,
for by the very conditions of its occurrence it cannot issue
directly in an important clash with reality. This practically
holds true of errors. And in wit we have the most defiantly
successful of all release types. Though repression and
true releases are involved in all these cases—though their
mechanism is identical with that of the psychoneuroses—
we have no psychopathy, because there is no withdrawal
from or quarrel with reality. When we come to day dreams
and moral holidays we are dealing with marginal cases.
Nevertheless we must not think of the normal person who
yet dreams and indulges in wit as getting rid of important
repressions along the lines of religion, art, or general social
service. Repression for us essentially involves habit dis-
tortion. If it becomes important then the whole life is dis-
oriented and disjoined from reality. So the concept of
sublimation seem6 self-contradictory. To clinch this dis-
tinction between the normal and the psychopathic we may
cite Freud on sleep rituals. He tells us that pathological
sleep rituals differ from those of normals not only in being
more pedantic and elaborate, but in involving a complex
hidden meaning, whereas everything, the normal does is easily
understandable.1 In other words, the normal person in-
tegrates in terms of reality, and the abnormal does not.
1
W . A. White, 'The Foundations of Psychiatry,' p. 107.
* Sigmund Freud, 'A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis,' p. 228.
iS JAMBS L. MURSELL

This is essentially the psychoanalytic conception of

normality. To secure normal adjustment of this type is the
ideal of the psychoanalytic treatment, where the practitioner
is the sympathetic and understanding representative of social
reality. The ideal may be formulated in a number of ways.
The introverted type is predisposed to maintain repressions
and to release them in socially impossible ways. It should be
noted that the normal extrovert does not release repressions
in socially successful ways, for the simple reason that he has
no repressions to release at all except such as can be taken
care of during sleep, by wit, or by slips of the tongue, pen,
or what-not. Again regression means a relapse to old and
inappropriate modes of behavior which are to some extent
modified from their crude original form, but not much. And
affective progression, which is the same thing as normality,
is being up-to-date add adequate in behavior, so that re-
pression has no part to play.
We are now in position to sum up on the general relation
of psychoanalysis to psychology. Psychoanalysis is of im-
portance in having brought to light certain complications in
behavior which were not previously recognized, as well as in
devising a technique to deal with them. These compli-
cations—repressions and releases—may, however, be formula-
ted in terms of well-known and tried psychological categories.
Furthermore, all behavior does not exhibit them, and in
themselves they do not constitute the essence of psychopathy.
They are present in the life of every human being, for the
development of personality is a rough job and repressions
and distortions are bound to be left over. But so long as the
individual is equal to environmental demands and able to live
substantially up to the social norms the mere presence of
certain mechanisms does not make him a psychopath. If
the mechanisms centrally dominate behavior, then, to be sure,
we have psychopathy, not because of their own intrinsic
structure, but because as they essentially involve dissociation
and substitution, they lead to a withdrawal from reality the
moment they begin to play an important part. They are
based on distortion, and a personality importantly distorted
 REPRESSION, RELEJSE AND NORMALITY 19

is by definition pathological. And on the other hand we

must be clear that normal behavior is determined by quite
another structure of motives. We cannot explain everyday
life in terms of repression and release.
Purely psychoanalytic interpretations of social develop-
ment, such as that of Rank and Sachs, for instance, operates
with the ill-defined concept of sublimation, and is logically
untenable in that its systematic basis is too narrow. It
vastly over-simplifies human nature, and cannot really
account for the facts. It has, however, raised the whole
question of the springs of human action in a very fresh and
cogent manner, and has made it very evident that what we
need is a really thoroughgoing and logical analysis of the
whole problem of motivation.