Volume 1

Sadism and masochism : the psychology of hatred and cruelty / by Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized English version by Louise Brink.

  • Wilhelm Stekel
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Sadism and masochism : the psychology of hatred and cruelty / by Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized English version by Louise Brink. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    are uttered and thought out (comprehended in words) and others which withdraw themselves from our observation before they are put into words. The question arises whether these latter ones may be considered as thoughts. They actually rep^ resent thought in statu nascendi; that is, thought which has not yet found words. Thus we would deduce that there is think- ing without words, which Apfelbach 1 calls feeling thought. This seems to contradict our experience. We are accustomed to designate as thought only that which can be verbally ex- pressed. We will not go more fully here into the question whether this thinking without words is really to be called feeling thought. Such thinking can be observed in many states. It manifests itself as thinking in images. There are patients who, asked to give their free associations, immediately produce a series of pictures which plainly represent preliminary stages of thought. The symbolic value of these images, which actually hide in the form of figures important affects, can be explained only by analysis. Every one of these images stands for a thought in statu nascendi.2 The process of putting our thought into words is doubtless much more complicated than we have formerly conceived. We frequently search for a suitable expression for a situation or feeling, unconsciously hit upon a choice between different words, whereby the choice in itself signifies a psychic betrayal and permits the recognition of deeper complexes that have not come to verbal form. Words are in fact compromise formations. Idea and word coincide most perfectly with concrete objects. If I speak the word table, I know that idea and word agree. To be sure, there are any number of different tables. But they all fall under the concept table. Through adjectives and compounds the concept may be more narrowly denned: round table, small table, card table, and so on. Nevertheless, table may denote a deeper complex, as we have learned from dream analyses. The symbolic use of concrete objects makes possible a further ap- plication and permits an affective charge to the idea table. (An example: Separation from table and bed [bed and board] shows that table may be used sexually. Table may also mean