THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA 1

BY

SANDOR RADQ
BERLIN

The insight which psycho-analysis has gained into the clinical picture
of melancholia is the result of the investigations of Freud and Abraham.
Abraham was the first to tum his attention to this subject. As early
as 19II he asserted [I] 2 that melancholia represents a reaction (com-
parable to that of grief) to the loss of love (the object). Some years
later Freud, having in the interval begun his researches into the nature
of narcissism, took the decisive step which led to the analytical elucida-
tion of the subject of melancholia [2]. He recognized that in melan-
cholia the object which has been renounced is set up again within the
ego and that thus in his self-reproaches the patient is continuing his
aggressive tendencies against that object. The first conditioning factor
in this processhe showed to be the regression from an object-relation to
a narcissistic substitute for it and, next, the predominance of ambi-
valence, which replaces love by hate and oral incorporation. In a later
work [J] Freud supplemented this hypothesis by the observation that
the cruelty of the super-ego in melancholia results from the defusion of
instincts which accompanies the act of identification. In 1923 Abraham
published a second and comprehensive work on melancholia [4]. By
a number of excellent individual observations he was able to confirm
Freud's conclusionsin all points and he added several important clinical
discoveries. He emphasized the melancholiac's incapacity for love-an
incapacity springing from his ambivalence-indicated the large part
played in the mental productions of such patients by cannibalistic
and oral instinctual impulses and revealed in the history of their
childhood a • primal depression ' from which they had suffered at the
height of their ffidipus development as a reaction to the double dis-
appointment of their love for mother and father.
We now understand the mechanism of melancholia in so far as
Freud has dissected it into its separate parts and Abraham has traced
the forces at work in it to elementary impulses of the component

1 Read before the Tenth International Psycho-Analytical Congress,

Innsbruck, September I, 1927.

a The ligures in brackets refer to the bibliography at the end of thi&
paper.

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA 42 1
instincts. But the plan according to.which these separate mental acts
are combined to form the whole structure of melancholia, its origin
and its specific meaning are still wholly obscure.
I shall endeavour to indicate to you to-day how far the analysis
of the ego and its narcissism enable us to penetrate deeper into the
nature of melancholia..
The most striking feature in the picture displayed by the symptoms
-of depressive conditions is the fall in self-esteem and self-satisfaction. 3
The depressive neurotic for the most part attempts to conceal this
disturbance; in melancholia it finds clamorous expression in the
patients' delusional self-accusations and self-aspersions, which we call
., the delusion of moral inferiority'. On the other hand, there are in
the behaviour of melancholiacs many phenomena which are in com-
plete contradiction to the patient's general self-abasement. Freud
gives the following description of this remarkable inconsistency in
such patients [2]; 'they are far from evincing towards those around
them the attitude of humility and submission that alone would befit
such worthless persons; on the contrary, they give a great deal of
trouble, perpetually taking offence and behaving as if they had been
treated with great injustice '.
He adds the explanation that these latter reactions are still being
roused by the mental attitude of rebellion, which has only later been
converted into the contrition of the melancholiac. As observation
shews, the acute phase of melancholia (or depressive conditions) is
regularly preceded by such a period of arrogant and embittered rebel-
lion. But this phase generally passes quickly and its symptoms are
then merged into the subsequent melancholic phase. In the transitory
symptoms which occur during analytic treatment we have an impressive
picture of this process. Let us now endeavour to throw some light
on this rebellious phase from the patient's previous history and a
consideration of the type of persons who are subject to it.
We will begin by describing the characteristics which may be
recognized in the ego of persons predisposed to depressive states.
We find in them, above all, an intensely strong craving for narcissistic
gratification and a very considerable narcissistic intolerance. We

3 [Selbstgefiihl, usually translated by the neutral word 'self-regard',

is used by this author in a more positive sense and is variously translated

here, by self-respect, self-esteem and self-satisfaction. as well. as by self-
regard.-Ed.]

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 422 SANDOR RAD6
observe that even to trivial offences and disappointments they
immediately react with a fall in their self-esteem. Their ego then
experiences an urgent craving to relieve in some way or other the
resulting narcissistic tension. The ego may be completely absorbed
by this and be paralysed for all further activities. A stronger indi-
vidual, on the other hand, will scarcely react at all to such frustrations,
will endure without harm trivial variations in the degree of his self-
esteem and will accommodate himself to the inevitable delay in its
restoration. Those predisposed to depression are, moreover, wholly
reliant and dependent on other people for maintaining their self-
esteem; they have not attained to the level of independence where
self-esteem has its foundation in the subject's own achievements and
critical judgement. They have a sense of security and comfort only
when they feel themselves loved, esteemed, supported and encouraged.
Even when they display an approximately normal activity in the
gratification of their instincts and succeed in realizing their aims and
ideals, their self-esteemlargely depends on whether they do or do not
meet with approbation and recognition. They are like those children
who, when their early narcissism is shattered, recover their self-respect
only in complete dependence on their love-objects.
Thus the favourite method employed by persons of this type for
increasing their self-respect is that of attracting to themselves nar-
cissistic gratification from without. Their libidinal disposition is easy
to comprehend; the instinctual .energies which they direct towards.
objects retain strong narcissistic elements, and therefore passive
narcissistic aims prevail in their object-relations. Freud postulated [2J
that the melancholiac's 'object-choice conforms to the narcissistic
type'; this characteristic may be regarded as a special instance of my
general statement.
Besides dependence on the love-object we find in persons prone to
depressive states a number of secondary characteristics which must be-
present in order to make up this typical disposition. Such persons are
never weary of courting the favour of the objects of their libido and
seeking for evidences of love from them; they sometimes expend an
astonishing skill and subtlety in this pursuit. This applies not only to
the objects of their purely sexual feelings: they behave in exactly
the same way in relations in which their sexual instinct is inhibited in
its aim and sublimated. They are wont to have a considerable number
of such relations, for they are most happy when living in an atmosphere
permeated with libido. But as soon as they are sure of the affection or

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA
devotion of another person and have entered into a fairly secure relation
with him or her their behaviour undergoes a complete change. They
accept the devoted love of the beloved person with a sublime non-
chalance, as a matter of course, and become more and more domineering
and autocratic, displaying an increasingly unbridled egoism, until
their attitude becomes one of full-blown tyranny. They cling to
their objects like leeches (to use a phrase of Abraham's) and feed
upon them, as though it were their intention to devour them
altogether. But all this takes place without their self-critical faculty
being aware of it; as a rule they are just as unaware of the wooing
character of their attitude as of its subsequent reversal or of the
tenacity with which their sadism fastens on their love-objects. Taking
this attitude into consideration we can hardly wonder that they react
with embittered vehemence to aggression on the part of others or
to the threat of withdrawal of love and that they feel the final
loss of the object of their tormenting love to be the greatest injustice
in the world.
Such, approximately, is the process leading to the indignant
rebellion which precedes the turning of the subject's aggressive ten-
dencies against himself in melancholia. Let us for the moment leave
out of consideration the introjection of the object, to which process
Freud has traced the reversal of mood in this disease, and let us try
to see how melancholia can be accounted for on the same psychological
premises as have explained the patient's passing into the phase of
rebellion. It will then be obvious that his contrition can only be a
reaction to the failure of his rebellion-a fresh weapon (the last one)
to which his ego has recourse in order to carry out its purpose. That
which it could not accomplish by rebellion it now tries to achieve by
remorseful self-punishment and expiation. The ego does penance,
begs for forgiveness and endeavours in this way to win back the lost
object. I once [s) described melancholia as a great despairing cry for
love, and I believe that our present context justifies us in so conceiving
of it.
But, you will object. this cannot be so, for the melancholiac has
surely withdrawn his interest from the object: it exists for him no
longer. How can he be striving to be reconciled to this object and to
recapture its affection? You are right; but the melancholiac has
transferred the scene of his struggle for the love of his object to a
different stage. He has withdrawn in narcissistic fashion to the inr er
world of his own mind and now, instead of procuring the pardor- and

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 SANDOR RAD6

love of his object, he tries to secure those of his super-ego. We know

that his relation to the object was marked by the predominance of th~
narcissistic desire to be loved, and it is quite easy for this aspiration to
be carried over to his relation with his own super-ego. It is as if
the ego of the melancholiac were to say to his super-ego: I I will take
all the guilt upon myself and submit myself to any punishment; I
will even, by ceasing to care for my bodily welfare, offer myself as an
expiatory sacrifice, if you will only interest yourself in me and be kind
to me '. Thus it seems that in melancholia there is an attempt to
decide the conflict with the object on a field other than the real one:
there is a narcissistic flight from the object-relation to that with the
super-ego and, by this regressive step, the ego is removed from
reality.
From this behaviour of the melancholiacwe may venture to divine
the processes which once took place within him at the time when the
formation of his super-ego was in progress. He was a child of a nar-
cissistic disposition, whoseself-esteemdepended entirely on his parents'
love. What an improvement in his mental situation when he began
actively to reproduce their requirements in his own mind! He was then
able to say to them: 'There is no need for you to correct me any
more, for I tell myself what you expect of me and, what is more, I
will do it ', But there were also times when he was naughty and his
parents were very angry. Then he understood that he had only to
pay the penalty and to ask for forgiveness, in order to be reconciled
to them. The next time he offended, it occurred to him that he might
do penance of his own accord and punish himself, in order quickly to
win his parents' forgiveness. Incidents of this sort are related to us in
our patients' analyses and children are known actually to carry out
this idea. We can easily imagine that, later, this process takes place
in the child without his knowing it. He begins unconsciously to repro-
duce within his mind the punishments anticipated from his parents and,
in doing so, he unconsciously hopes to win love. Some unmerited
narcissistic injury, e.g, an estrangement from his parents through no
fault of his own,is probably the original motive for such an unconscious
attempt at reparation. In some such way we may reconstruct the
process by which the person who subsequently succumbs to melan-
cholia (and certainly he is not alone in this respect) produces the
mechanism of self-punishment.
But, as soon as the active reproduction of parental punishment
ceases to have reference in the conscious mind to the parents them-

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA

selves and is carried out unconsciously, the intention is no longer that

the subject should be reconciled to them but to the super-ego, which is
their internal mental representative. Instead of the early process of
putting matters right in actual fact with the parents, we have the
purely psychical process by which he puts them right with his super-
ego, as happens later in melancholia. But in relation to external
reality this inner process remains entirely ineffective. With the
unconscious reproduction of parental punishments the oral-narcissistic
process of introjection (the formation of the super-ego) has overstepped
the limits of its social usefulness: self-punishment is a part of the
infantile relation to the object, a survival which controverts reality
and takes an inward direction. In its dread of losing love the infantile
ego has clearly gone too far; its narcissistic craving remains unsatis-
fied, even when it submits itself to the destructive effects of self-
punishment. In so far, then, as the ego in melancholia gives itself
up to this mechanism, it has broken off its relations with reality and
jeopardized its existence in vain.
We have seen how self-punishment takes place in the hope of
absolution and has its origin in the longing for love. Now I am sure
you will share my critical suspicion that the close connection between
guilt, atonement and forgiveness, so deeply rooted in our mental life,
cannot possibly owe its enormous importance simply to the experiences
·of the growing child in the course of his training. It is certainly a
momentous step when the child begins to grasp the idea of guilt and
to experience the peculiar quality of the sense of guilt. But it seems
.as though he were already prepared for this experience, so as to under-
stand straight away the next conception: that of punishment and
expiation and, above all, that of final forgiveness. Our study of
melancholia enables us actually to see into the history of this mental
structure-a history reaching back to the primal dawn of the mind-
.and to lay bare the ultimate foundations of experience upon which it
is built. Here I may refer to a conclusion which I have already sug-
gested elsewhere [5]. Briefly it is this: that, when the child passes
from the period of suckling, he carries with him, indelibly stamped on
his mind, a sequence of experiences which later he works over so as to
form the connection: guilt-atonement-forgiveness. You can observe
in the nursery how the infant, if its craving for nourishment awakens
in the absence of the mother, flies into an impotent rage, kicks and
screams, and then, exhausted by this reaction to its helplessness, faIls
wholly a prey to the torments of hunger. But you know also that this

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 SANDOR RADO
cruel experience is finally followed with unfailing certainty by the
reappearance of the mother and that in drinking at her breast the
child experiences that oral-narcissistic bliss which Freud is certainly
right in describing as the prototype, never again attained to, of all
subsequent gratification [6]. The whole process constitutes a single
sequence of experiences, countless times repeated, of whose responsi-
bility in determining future development we surely need no further
proofs. From the paroxysm of rage in the hungry infant proceed all
the later forms of (lggressive reaction to frustration (e.g. devouring,
biting, striking, destroying, etc.) and it is on these that the ego, in the
period of latency, concentrates its whole sense of guilt. The hyper-
cathexis of the impulses of aggression with manifest feelings of guilt
is the consequence of a normal advance in development, which the
material produced in our analyses enables us to follow without effort,
while the knowledge arrived at by Freud makes it easily intelligible.
At the height of the phallic phase the infantile ego (intimidated by the
dread of castration-loss of love) has to renounce its dangerous
<Edipus wishes and to secure itself against their recurrence. To do
this it forms out of the primary function of self-observation a powerful
institution (the super-ego) and develops the capacity for becoming
aware of the criticisms of this institution in the form of a dread of
conscience (the sense of guilt). The newly-acquired reaction of con-
science deals a death-blow to the ffidipus complex, but the impulses
embodiedin that complex undergo different fates. The genital impulse
succumbs to repression; its motor elements are inhibited and the
group of ideas (incest-phantasies, onanism) which were cathected by
it vanish from consciousness and leave no trace behind them. The
aggressive impulse, on the other hand, cannot be warded off in so
effectual a manner. Its driving force is, it is true, paralysed by the
setting up of a powerful anti-cathexis, but the ideas cathected by it
are retained in consciousness. Evidently the egois incapable of erecting
a barrier against the manifestations of aggression as it doesagainst those
of gross sensuality. The former are constantly presented to it by the·
unavoidable impressions of daily life and not least by the aggressive
measures adopted by those who train the child. Education must
therefore content itself with condemning his acts of aggression in the
most severe terms and causing him to attach to them the ideas of guilt
and sin. The close relation between genitality and repression on the
one hand and aggression and defence through reaction on the other-
a relation to which Freud has recently drawn attention [7]-thus has

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA
its roots in the child's practical situation. Subsequently, the repressed
guilt connected with genitality (i.e. the guilt which is incapable of
entering consciousness) hides itself behind the guilt of aggression,
which persists undisguised in the conscious mind; and thus the
sadistic impulse (which, genetically, goes back to the infant's outbreak
of rage) also becomes the manifest carrier of the whole feeling of
incest-guilt, this being displaced from its genital source. The torments
of hunger are the mental precursors of later ' punishments' and, by
way of the discipline of punishment, they come to be the primal
mechanism of self-punishment, which in melancholia assumes such a
fatal significance. At the bottom of the melancholiac's profound dread
of impoverishment there is really simply the dread of starvation (that
is, of impoverishment in physical possessions), with which the vitality
of such part of his ego as remains normal reacts to the expiatory acts
which threaten the life of the patient in this disease. But drinking at
the mother's breast remains the radiant image of unremitting, forgiving
love. It is certainly no mere chance that the Madonna nursing the
Child has become the emblem of a mighty religion and thereby the
emblem of a whole epoch of our Western civilization. I think that if
we trace the chain of ideas, guilt-atonement-forgiveness, back to the
sequence of experiences of early infancy: rage, hunger, drinking at the
mother's breast, we have the explanation of the problem why the hope
of absolution and love is perhaps the most powerful conception which
we meet with in the higher strata of the mental life of mankind.
According to this argument, the deepest fixation-point in the
melancholic (depressive) disposition is to be found in the' situation
of threatened loss of love' (Freud [7J ), mc.e precisely, in the hunger-
situation of the infant. We shall learn more about it if we examine
more closely that experience of ' oral-narcissistic bliss' which is vouch-
safed to him in his extremity. I have elsewhere [8]tried to demonstrate
that pleasurable stimulation of the mouth-zone does not constitute
the whole of the oral-libidinal gratification but should rather be
regarded as its more conspicuous antecedent. I thought there was
reason to refer the climax of this enjoyment to the subsequent, invisible
part of the process, which I termed' the alimentary orgasm' and which
I have assumed to be the precursor, along the road of evolution, of
the later genital orgasm. We now see that the alimentary orgasm of
the infant at the mother's breast is a phenomenon with important
consequences, whose influence radiates out into the whole of his later
life. It satisfies the egoistic cravings of the little human being for

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 SANDOR RAD6

nourishment, security and warmth, fulfils the longings of his budding

object-instincts and, by the blending of all these factors it induces in
him a kind of narcissistic transport which is inseparably connected
with them. It is perhaps more correct to say that this tremendous
experience of gratification contains, as yet inextricably combined,
all the components which subsequent development will differentiate
and carry forward to different fates. But it comes to the same thing:
we cannot fail to recognize that the infant's dawning ego acquires in
this narcissistic gratification that mental quality which it will later
experience as 'self-satisfaction '. This feeling is, in its origin, the
reaction of the dawning ego to the experience which is biologically
the most important to it, namely, that of alimentary orgasm. Later
on the principal incentives for stimulating self-esteem will be the ego's
developments in the direction of power and all the forms of activity
by which it obtains gratification-we can actually distinguish within
self-esteem a progress from the oral to a sadistic-anal and thence to a
genital level (corresponding to the varying technique of acquisition)-
but the peculiar quality of the experience persists as a specifically
differentiated memory-symbol of that early ego-reaction which was
conditioned by the alimentary orgasm.
If we take into consideration the fact that the quality of feeling
which is experienced as self-esteem (as this has already been described
by Bernfeld[9]), can, by the addition of freshfactors, advance in succes-
sive stages to the pitch of exaltation, triumph, ecstasy and intoxication,
we may feelthat the chain of connectedideas is brought to a satisfactory
end. I discovered already some time ago through another channel
that states of intoxication in adults are derived from the experienceof
blissful repletion in the process of nutrition. Now it is precisely for
melancholia that the genetic sequence here worked out: alimentary
orgasm-self-satisfaction-intoxication-is of importance. As we have
heard, the melancholiac tries to restore his seriously diminished self-
esteem by means of love. His behaviour strikes us as morbid, because
it is related not to the object but to his own super-ego. But it leads
to a result which is entirely logical though none the less pathological.
I refer to mania, in which disease, as Freud has recognized[ro], the
ego is once more merged with the super-ego in unity. We may add
that this processis the faithful, intra-psychic repetition of the experi-
ence of that fusing with the mother that takes place during drinking
at her breast. The earliest (oral) technique for the renewal of self-
satisfaction is revived on the psychic plane and.results-as is psycho-

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA
logically perfectly correct-in the transports' of mania. The manic
condition succeeds the phase of self-punishment with the same regu-
larity with which formerly, in the biological process, the bliss' of
satiety succeeded to hunger. We know, further, that the ego has yet
another pathological method to which it can resort in order to bolster
up its tottering self-esteem. This method also takes the alimentary
orgasm as its prototype: it consists of a flight into the pharmacotoxic
states to which the victims of drug-addiction have recourse.
Let us go back to our earlier statement that the ego, finding that
its rebellion against the loss of its object is futile, changes its psycho-
logical technique, confesses that it is guilty and passes into a state of
remorseful contrition. Here the question arises exactly why and of
what does the ego feel itself guilty? In depressive neurotics we need
to get through a great deal of work in order to answer this question"
with any certainty. With the melancholiac, however, who in this
respect is so frank with us, we have only to listen attentively and then
we easily arrive at the inner meaning of his self-reproaches. He feels
guilty because by his aggressive attitude he has himself to blame for
the loss of the object, and in this we certainly cannot contradict him.
We observe, too, that this confessionof guilt by the ego is modelled on
infantile prototypes and its expression is strongly reinforced from
infantile sources. Nevertheless, precisely the most striking charac-
teristics of the melancholiac's atonement would still be incomprehen-
sible were it not that we know that this behaviour is contributed to
very largely from another quarter.
There is indeed another psychic process at work, parallel with the
melancholicatonement. It has its originin the sadistic trend of hostility
to the object, which has already shown its force in the ambivalent
character of the love-relation,which later supplied the fuel for rebellious
reactions, and which brought the ego over to the other view, namely,
that the object alone was to blame for the quarrel, having provoked the
rigour of the ego by its caprice, unreliability and spite. Freud's dis-
covery, which I mentioned at the beginning of this paper, revealed to
us the surprising fact that in melancholia this overmastering aggressive
tendency of the id proves stronger than the ego. When the latter has
failed ignominiously to carry through the claims of its hostile impulses
towards the object (i.e. when the phase of rebellion collapses) and

, [Raus,h: This word is the same as that used by the author for the
e1Iect of drugs, then and here too alSo traDslated by • intoxication'.-Ed.]

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 43° SANDOR RAD6
thereupon adopts an attitude of masochistic remorse towards the super-
ego, the aggressive tendency of the id goes over to the side of the super-
ego and forces the ego itself, weakened by its expiatory attitude, into
the position of the object. Thereafter the super-ego visits upon the
ego all the fury which the ego would otherwise have been capable of
visiting upon the object. In the past the ego sallied forth into the
world in order to find gratification for its narcissistic craving for love,
but the demands of its sadism brought it to grief; now, turning away
from reality, it seeks for narcissistic gratification within the mind
itself, but, here again, it cannot escape the overpowering force of the
aggressiveinstinct. The self-punishments assume forms very different
from that of the expiation which may have hovered before the imagina-
tion of the ego, and are carried to a degree far in excess of it. In its
remorse the ego turned, full of confidence, to a benevolent being, whose
punishments would be but light; now it has to bear the consequences
of its infantile trustfulness and weakness. Since, in its perplexity, it
cannot rid itself of the hope of the forgiveness which shall save it, it
submits to the role of object, takes upon itself the whole guilt of the
object and suffers without resistance the cruelties of the super-ego.
Its own self is now almost annihilated-only its various dreads
(expressed in distorted forms) betray that the core of the ego still
exists. Such total capitulation on the part of the ego to the sadism
of the id would be incomprehensible, if it were not that we realize that
it falls a victim to the indestructible infantile illusion that only by
yielding and making atonement can it be delivered from its narcissistic
distress.
This, then, is the change of grouping which the' synthetic function'
brings about in the ego of the melancholiac. From instinctual pro-
cesses whose origin and trend are diametrically opposed it succeeds in
organizing the mental activities into one great and unified whole, these
heterogeneous elements appearing as operative factors which are
mutually dependent and complementary. The repentant ego desires
to win the forgiveness of the offended object and, as an atonement,
submits to being punished by the super-ego instead of by the object.
In the undreamed-of harshness of the super-ego the old tendency of
hostility to the object is expending its fury on the ego, which is thrust
into the place of the hated object. Thus, the result of this synthetic
process is a very extensive loss of the relation to reality and complete
subjection of the ego to the unrestrained tyranny of the sadistic super-
ego, which, as Freud remarks, has arrogated t~ itself the consciousness

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA 43 1
(and, we may now add, also the' synthetic function 'j of the melan-
cholic personality.
Here we must pause, for we cannot suppress our astonishment at
this conclusion. This, so to speak, symmetrical solution which we have
discovered for the Conflicts of the ambivalent instinctual impulses is
certainly tempting in form, and in content it is based in all its elements
on assured data acquired by observation, but it appears to contain a
hopeless contradiction. According to our construction the object
would have to undergo two different processes of incorporation, being
absorbed not only by the super-ego but by the ego-an idea which
at first sight we cannot grasp' and which we mistrust. Either our
explanation is erroneous or we still lack insight into certain funda-
mental relations. I hope to be able to shew that the latter is true
and that the difficulty can be solved. But, in order to do this, we must
go back a little further.
Freud has assumed, for good reasons, that sensory perception is
at the outset entirely controlled by the pleasure-principle. Only what
is pleasurable is perceived; that which is painful is, as far as possible,
ignored. It is a long time before this latter also gains psychic repre-
sentation in the child. When it does so, the period begins in which the
world clearly consists, in the child's view, of two kinds of ideas: those
of things which are pleasurable and those of things which are painful.
But there are certain tricky things which are sometimes a source of
pleasure and sometimes of pain: the mother, for instance, according
to whether she caresses her child with a happy smile or is angry and
disregards or even hurts it. It is easy for us to say that it is one and
the same mother in two different moods. It signifies an enormous
advance when the child reaches the point of being able to make this
synthesis; at first he is incapable of such an achievement of thought.
He is still wholly dominated by the pleasure-principle, and he distin-
guishes between these two impressions as objects which are ' good'
or' bad', or, as we may say, as his 'good mother , or his 'bad mother '.
The experiences and recollections connected with the mother do not
form in the child's mind one continuous series, as we should expect in
the case of adults. His perceptions and memory-images of the one
real object produce two series, sharply differentiated according to their
hedonic value.
This primitive mode of functioning of the dawning intellectual,
activity acquires'a lasting importance in our mental life from the fact
that it is connected with the ambivalence of instinctual life. The' good'

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 432 SANDOR RAD6
(pleasure-conferring) and the • bad' (frustration-inflicting) mothers
become for the child isolated objects (instinct-representations) of his
love and his hate. This duality of the objects persists in such thinking
as is instinctually controlled, even when the child from the purely
intellectual standpoint grasps the completeidea of ' mother' (including
both her' good' and her' bad' moods). As soon as he comes under
the influence of a strong love-impulse his wholeteal knowledge about
the bad side of his mother is simply blotted out; and, conversely,
when his hate-impulses break through, there is nothing in the mother
who is now' bad' to remind him that this mother is also wont to be
good. It is easy to understand this behaviour: it means that the still
weak ego is avoiding the conflict of ambivalence by turning with its
love to a mother who is only loveable and with its hate to another
mother who deserves only hate. While in this condition the child,
from his subjective standpoint, cannot yet be described as 'ambi-
valent' at all; ambivalenceis established.only wheneducation succeeds
in causing him to relate the two contrary discharges of instinct to the
one real mother-object, that is, when he has 'learnt to know' what he
is doing. By this means education compels him to repressat any rate
the worst part of his aggressive tendencies. His aggression, warded
off by the ego, then remains in the unconscious fastened upon the
isolated representation • bad mother', a fact which ensures the con-
tinuance of this partial idea. When the child has recognized the sad
truth that his mother is sometimes' good' and sometimes' bad', there
arises in him in his craving for love the constantly increasing longing
for a mother who is • always only good '. The isolated image of the
•good' mother now persists in his mind as a strongly-cathected
wish-idea.
I would note here that persons who have the care of little children
reveal in their behaviour an instinctive knowledge of the duality of the
child's conception. When a nurse, after scolding her little charge,
desires to soothe him, she makes use of a certain comfortingexpedient.
'The naughty boy has gone away', she says, 'there is only our good
boy here now'. Or if, perhaps, she perceivesthat she has been unjust
to the little boy, she will give herself one or two slaps in front of him
and then say of herself: 'Naughty Marie has gone away: there is
only good Marie here now'. You observe how this innocent game
confirms the child's instinctive view that bad people are. there to be
slain, for to be' away' means to be dead. We may say, further, that
in this double idea we have the origin of the good and evil spirits which
. -

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA 433

primitive man conceives of as ' possessing' people or things, and also

of the idea of a ' double' which in dreams, myths and other creations
of the unconsciousis so often met with as an expression of ambivalence.
The child's longing for a father and mother who shall be always
• only good' is constantly being reinforced by the threats with which
he is menaced (castration) and by painful punishments, and it finally
provides the motive force for the formation of the super-ego. In
saying this we are only expressing in a somewhat modified form a
discovery of Freud's which has becomefamiliar to us. Our formulation
of it is designed to bring into prominence the part played in psychology
by these pairs of ideas. We gain a clear picture of the situation in the
phase in which the super-ego is being formed, if we attribute to the
infantile ego the following train of thought :-
'My parents must never punish me any more, they must only love
me. Their image within my mind-my super-ego-will now see to it
that they need never again be angry with me. Of course my super-
ego also must love me. But if the function of my super-ego is to secure
for me my parents' love, then if must be able to compel me to desist
from certain actions. If necessary, it must be very severe with me
and, nevertheless, I shall love it '.
According to this description the formation of the super-ego is an
attempt of the ego to realize its desire to transform the alternately
• good' and' bad' parents into parents who are' only good '. In
pursuit of this intention the ego must above all renounce its genital
and sadistic impulses, in so far as they are directed against the parents
(CEdipus libido of the id). Moreover, it must make up its mind to
accord to the internalized parents (the super-ego) the right to be
angry and severe on occasion; nevertheless, the ego will not cease to
love them and to desire their love. In taking this decision the ego
makes over to the super-ego the control of those instinctual energies
of the id whose activity it has itself renounced.
Thus the parental institution set up within the mind (introjected)
is in all points a creation of the ego. The ego in the first instance
constructs this institution from its • good parents' and also from the
behaviour of the 'bad parents'. That is to say, the ego loves the
internalized parents just as it loves its • good parents' in reality, but
it must not allow itself to hate them like its ' bad parents', even if
they behave like' bad parents'. We see then that the super-ego when
it comes into being takes over from the ego the group of ideas relating
to ' good parents' together with the cathexis pertaining to it, whilst it
29

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 SANDOR RAD6
borrows from the group of ideas relating to the' bad parents' only its
content. The erotic and aggressive forces with which the super-ego
has to work are placed at its disposal by the ego when the latter
abandons its own right to employ them; they are drawn from the
instinct-reservoir of the id. The sadistic tendency (of hostility to the
parents), so far as it resists this fate, is banished by the ego unaltered
into the realm of the repressed, where it already finds a representation
in the isolated partial idea of the' bad parents'. A similar fate over-
takes that remainder of the crudely sensual sexual trend which refuses
to be turned inwards (in the form of desexualization and surrender
to the super-ego). Thus the ego strives earnestly to give to its old
dream of parents who are ' only good' living realization in the real
parents.
At this point I must again emphasize the one-sided orientation
and the schematic character of the account which I have just given.
My purpose was simply to define the type of individuals, feminine in
their narcissism, to which persons of depressive disposition conform.
With this type the mere' danger of loss of love' is sufficientto compel
formation of the super-ego. The purely masculine type, whose nar-
cissism is of a different character and which surrenders only to the
pressure of threatened castration, does not concern us here.
We can now return from this excursion back to the question of
melancholic introjection. The individual who is later to succumb to
melancholia retains all his life, in consequence of the exaggerated
ambivalence of his instinctual disposition, very considerable residues
of his infantile, duplicating mode of thinking. When he gives play
alternately to his ambivalent impulses and thus succeedsin completely
withdrawing his consciousness from the light or dark side of the object,
as the occasion requires, he is behaving in a manner hardly different
from that of the child. It is only clinical observation of this pheno-
menon, so entirely characteristic of neurotic ambivalence, which
enables us by reasoning a posteriori to throw light upon the correspond-
ing processes in the development of the child. When, with the out-
break of melancholia, the strong current of regressiveprocessesbegins
to flow, the subject's idea of his latest love-object, which has hitherto
corresponded to reality, must also give way in the end to the archaic
demands made on the function of thought by his ambivalence, which
has now broken free of all restraint. The' good object " whose love
the egodesires, is introjected and incorporated in the super-ego. There,
in accordance with the principle which, as we have just remarked,

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA 435

govenls the formation of this institution, it is endowed with the pre-

scriptive right (formerly so vehemently disputed in relation to the real
object), to be angry with the ego-indeed, very angry. The t bad
object' has been split off from the object as a whole, to act, as it were,
as t whipping-boy'. It is incorporated in the ego and becomes the
victim of the sadistic tendency now emanating from the super-ego.
As you see, the logical inconsistency is really entirely cleared up.
This conclusion now enables us to discover in its fullest implica-
tions the hidden meaning of the mechanism of melancholia. For
consider: The worst fault by which the t bad object' has incurred
guilt, according to the reproach of the ego, is its ambivalence, by which
it has t provoked' the ego's hostility. Now if the t bad object' which
resides within the egois chastised and finally destroyed, all that remains
is the object purged of its t bad' element, i.e. the t good object' ;
moreover, the hostility of the ego (of the id) is satisfied and has spent
itself. Nothing now stands in the way of the purified ego's uniting
itself with the object, which is also purged of offence, in reciprocal
love! When the subject swings over to mania this, the goal of the
melancholic process (in the region of the pathological) is fully attained.
The t bad object' (as Abraham recognized [4]) is expelled from the
ego by an anal act and this is synonymous with its being killed. The
ego, freed of its own aggressive tendencies and its hated enemy, heaves
a sigh of relief and with every sign of blissful transport unites itself
with the t good object', which has been raised to the position of the
super-ego.
Thus we come to realize that the process of melancholia represents
an attempt at reparation (cure) on a grand scale, carried out with an
iron psychological consistence. It is designed to revive the ego's
self-regard, which has been annihilated by the loss of love, to restore
the interrupted love-relation, to be as it were a prophylactic measure
against the ego's ever suffering such severe injury again and, with this
end in view, to do away with the causes of the mischief, namely, the
ambivalence of the ego and that of the object. As to attaining any
real effect by this line of action, the crucial point is that it does not take
place on the right plane, in relation to the object-world, but is carried
out, subject to a narcissistic regression, entirely between the separate
institutions in the patient's mind. It cannot restore to the ego the lost
object; the final reconciliation with the object (after this has been
replaced by the super-ego) is accomplished not as a real process in
the outside world but as a change of the situation (cathexis) in the

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 SANDOR RADO

psychic organization. From this purely psychic act, however, there

ensues an important real result: the restoration of the subject's self-
esteem-indeed, its leap into the exaltation of mania. The difference
is clear to us: the melancholicprocess, set going by a grievousshatter-
ing of the subject's narcissism,can by meansof a purely psychicshifting
of cathexis attain to its narcissistic goal (the restoration of self-esteem),
even though reality be thereby ignored. Once passed into the state
of mania, the ego immediately finds its way back into the object-world.
With all its energy released by the sudden change in cathexis it rushes
upon reality and there expends its violence. What determines the
behaviour of the manic patient is the oral derivation of the psychogenic
transport; it is a striking fact that in mania the adult with his mani-
fold potentialities of action and reaction reproduces the uninhibited
instinctual manifestations which we observe in the euphoria of the
satiated suckling. That the quality of the reactions of a period of life
in which the super-ego did not as yet exist should be the pattern upon
which is modelled the manic state (the basis of which is a temporary
withdrawal of the super-ego) is exactly what we should expect.
The productive energy of the melancholic process is not exhausted
when the manic phase has been brought about. When the last echoes
of that phase have died away-or sometimes immediately on its
passing-this energy finds outlet in the obsessive tinge which it
imparts to the subject's character in the' interval ofremission'. One of
Abraham's most memorable contributions to our knowledge is his
discovery and description of this peculiarity of character [4]. This
issue is due to the preponderance of sadistic-anal instinctual energies
and is based on a renunciation of the oral restoration of self-esteem in
mania. The ego has grown stronger and endeavours to avert in the
sphere of reality the dangers with which it is threatened by its ambi-
valence. Thanks to the subject's full recognition of reality, this
endeavour is crowded with considerable success in the direction of
cure. The ego, its wits sharpened by its painful experiences, erects
widely-flung psychic bulwarks to restrain its ambivalence; through
this excess of reaction-formations its character now becomes like that
of the obsessional neurotic. But this change in character does more
than merely guard the ego against the perils of its ambivalence. By
means of the extensive ideal-formation the dangerous aggressive
impulsesare directed into socialchannels and thus, by way of fulfilment
of the ideal, they minister to narcissistic gratification in accordance
with reality. As we know, the power of this mental structure to resist

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 THE PROBLEM OF MELANCHOLIA 437
fresh strains varies extraordinarily with different individuals. But it
would be premature to try to make any more exact pronouncement
at the present time either on this point or on the other economic
problems of the manifold courses taken by melancholia.
In conclusion I should like to devote a few remarks to the problem
of neurotic depression. Observation shows that the depressive process,
in so far as it has caught in its grip the ego of the person suffering from
a transference-neurosis, is carried out in exact accordance with the
mechanism of true melancholia. That is to say that neurotic depres-
sion also has as its basis a narcissistic turning-away from reality, the
external object being replaced by psychic institutions and an endeavout
being made to solve the conflicts on the intrapsychic plane instead of
in the outside world, and by means of a regressively activated oral
technique. But there is this difference: these processesalmost wholly
consume the ego of the melancholic and destroy those functions in him
which relate to reality, while in a transference-neurosis they are as it
were merely superimposed upon an ego which is, indeed, neurotic but
is more or less intact. In the depressive neurotic the object and, with
it, the relation to reality, are preserved: it is only that the patient's
hold on them is loosened and the weakly ego has begun to give up the
struggle with the world-a struggle which it feels to be unbearable--
to turn inwards in a narcissistic fashion and to take refuge in the oral-
narcissistic reparation-mechanism. Thus, neurotic depression is a
kind of partial melancholia of the (neurotic) ego; the further the
depressive process extends within that ego at the cost of its relations
to the object and to reality, the more does the condition of narcissistic
neurosis approximate to melancholia. Accordingly,in an acute access
of depression we should expect the issue to turn upon whether in the
narcissistic machinery of the ego the oral mechanisms gain the upper
hand or whether the sadistic-anal (and genital) mechanisms,whosehold
upon the object-world is firmer, are strong enough to safeguard the
ego from the plunge into melancholia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
r. Abraham: • Notes on the Psycho-Analytical Investigation and Treat-
ment of Manic-depressive Insanity and Allied Conditions' (19U).
Selected Papers on Psycho-A nalysis. Hogarth Press.
2. Freud: •Mourning and Melancholia' (1916). CollectedPapers, Vol. IV.
Hogarth Press.
3 Freud: The Ego and the Id (1923). Hogarth Press.

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 SANDOR RADO
4. Abraham: • A Short Study of the Development of the Libido, viewed
in the Light of Mental Disorders' (1924). Selected Papers on
Psycho-Analysis. Hogarth Press.
5. Rad6: • An Anxious Mother '. This JOURNAL, Vol. IX, 1928.
6. Freud: Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysjs (1916/7). Allen and
Unwin, 1922.
7. Freud: Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1926).
8. Rad6: •The Psychical Effects of Intoxicants' (1926). This JOURNAL,
Vol. IX, 1928.
9. Bernfeld: Psychologie des Sauglings, Wien, 1925.
10. Freud: Group Psychology and theAnalysis oj the Ego (1921). Hogarth
Press.

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