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CLINICAL NOTES
SIGMUND FREUD ON ‘THE PSYCHIC APPARATUS’
Freud, Sigmund (1940). ‘An Outline of Psychoanalysis,’ Historical and Expository
Works on Psychoanalysis, translated by James Strachey, edited by Albert Dickson
(London: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. 369-443.
What is the psyche?
All theorists and clinicians assume that there is something that answers to this term.
In his ‘Outline of Psychoanalysis,’ Sigmund Freud set out to explain what exactly the
psyche is.
Freud’s first move is to invoke a spatial metaphor; the psyche is simply compared to
a scientific apparatus (like a microscope or a telescope). These apparatuses are used
to explore the external world.
A scientist’s ability to make sense of that which is very small or that which is very far
is a function of the ability to use these optical instruments.
It takes a certain amount of effort to learn to use them correctly and to see through to
a world that is different from that which we inhabit (even though the term ‘reality’
encompasses all these three worlds): the world in which we live; the world of that
which is very small; and the world of that which is very far.
The difference however between these scientific instruments and the psychical
apparatus (i.e. the psyche compared to a scientific instrument) is that the
deployment of these instruments presupposes the existence of the psyche that can
make sense of what it explores.
Any attempt to study the structure and function of the psychical apparatus is
therefore necessarily self-reflexive; it is a bit like an optical instrument contemplating
its own structure and function.

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Or, to put it simply, the ‘knowing subject’ is attempting to describe his own psychic
apparatus albeit in the context of psychoanalysis.
That then is the theoretical difficulty that Freud encounters when he sets out to
describe what is at stake in describing the most important of all these scientific
instruments – the human mind which he describes as the ‘psychic apparatus.’
What then is the structure of the psychic apparatus?
The basic challenge for Freud is to reconcile three theories of the mind that exist in
his work: ‘the topographical model, the structural model, and the economic model.’
Most readers will be acquainted with the structural model comprising ‘the id, the
ego, and the superego.’
Before setting out this model, Freud was also preoccupied with another aspect of the
psyche which is not about ‘what-is-what’ like in the structural model, but about
‘what-is-where’ in terms of ‘psychical qualities.’
This topographical model of the psyche is related to the relationship between
psychical qualities like ‘consciousness, the preconscious, and the unconscious.’
It is also an attempt to relate the unconscious with the theory of repression.
Freud was at pains to point out that everything that is repressed is unconscious, but not
everything that is unconscious is repressed. The function of repression can also be
differentiated between ‘primal repression’ and ‘repression proper.’
The former is a structural phenomenon that constitutes how the subject represses the
fantasy that attends to the oedipal matrix in childhood; the latter relates to the
derivatives of the primal repression that must be repressed repeatedly.
The differences between these levels of repression can also be described from an
economic point of view (in addition to the topographic and structural models of the
psyche).
The basic problem in severe forms of repression is that it is not economical. Freud
uses the term ‘economic’ as an adjectival form to refer to his theory of psychic
expenditure.
Repression proper is what is at stake in releasing the symptomatic pain experienced
by the subject in analysis because it requires an endless expenditure of effort and
energy to keep the primal repression in place.
The theory of the psychic apparatus therefore requires to be described from three
points of view in order to encompass its structure and function.

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These theories were developed separately in the first instance in the clinic since
Freud was not acquainted with the psychical apparatus in the way in which we are
through his writings.
So unlike the physical and biological sciences in which scientific instruments are
used to explore the external world, the psychic apparatus is used to explore how the
subject relates the internal world, to the external world, and the neurotic
disturbances that makes it difficult to relate these worlds to each other.
As Freud was fond of saying, every neurosis represents a difficulty in relating the
inner world to the outer world.
It leads, sooner or later, to a situation in which the subject finds himself unable to
cope with the demands of an external reality and so turns inward into the recesses of
his own psyche.
That is not because the neurotic subject has any need to find out what is it that was
subject to repression in the first place, but because it becomes a form of neurotic pre-
occupation.
This neurotic preoccupation is tantamount to saying that the subject is more
interested in coping with the demands of his symptoms than with the world outside.
The neurotic subject can be defined as somebody who is fleeing both the reality of the
external world and the real of the internal world.
Freud’s task in describing the psychic apparatus then in the context of a theory of
energy is to describe how and why this happens and suggest a solution through the
interventions of analysis.
In order to do this he describes these three theories: the structural, the topographic,
and the economic and then relates them to each other to get a comprehensive
description of the psychic apparatus.

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However the elements of interaction between these theories can be overlooked if the
reader is not careful to relate these different aspects of the psychic apparatus
together as Freud does.
Most misunderstandings of psychoanalytic theory or practice relate to one or more
of the points listed above.
So, for instance, a reader can conflate these three theories or not understand why the
psychic apparatus is described from three points of view.
The reader may not understand the relationship between the unconscious and the
function of repression; or, how to differentiate between primal repression and
repression proper.
If the reader gets through all these aspects, he will have difficulty in situating the
theory of psychic expenditure within a model Freudian energetics.
Freudian energetics itself is related to the theory of libido and the theory of affects. It
is important to remember that libido and affects are usually displaced and not
subject to repression.
It is always the ‘ideational representative’ of the oedipal matrix; or, as Jacques Lacan
puts it, the ‘signifier’ that is subject to primal repression and not the affects or quanta
of libido attached to the signifier.
Repression proper is related to preventing the derivatives of primal repression from
coming into consciousness.
The economic model of the psychic apparatus is related to the structural opposition
between the ‘pleasure principle’ and the ‘reality principle.’
Freud describes the psychic apparatus as having a specific capacity for homeostasis
(i.e. keeping tension at an optimal level).
The neurotic subject however will not be able to process stress, tension, or any other
affect at the optimal level that is required to be functional in the sense that is
presupposed in the physiological model of Walter Cannon (which Freud imported
into his model of the pleasure principle).
This element of the psyche is also misunderstood; the pleasure principle is not about
doing whatever the subject wants to do but about a form of self-regulation.
So, for instance, clinical observations and theoretical inferences lead us to believe
that the subject cannot bear too much pleasure or happiness since that will activate
the superego.

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The subject therefore tries to self-regulate the levels of excitement that his psyche can
handle at any point in time.
The Freudian theory of death instinct is also relevant here; the death instinct is
mainly activated when the subject goes ‘beyond the pleasure principle.’
That means when the neurotic subject seeks ‘pleasure-in-pain’ and ‘pain-in-pleasure’
(jouissance) without attempting to keep these things apart through the pleasure-pain
calculus like the normative subject of analytic theory, he is more likely to seek
recourse to uneconomic measures in respond to internal or external stimuli.
This is an indication that his death instincts have been triggered off and he will fall
prey to the ‘fight-unto-death’ syndrome; the actual death of the subject then is
preceded by these forms of negative activation in the psyche.
Needless to say, clinicians must be on the lookout for how attached the subject of
analysis is to his jouissance, and the circumstances in which it can trigger off his
death instincts.
Early indications that the death instinct is being pre-maturely activated relates to the
propensity to act-out or seek uneconomic responses to the problems of everyday life.
That then is a brief description of what Sigmund Freud has to tell us about the
psychic apparatus.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN