Abstract

Freud's early attempts to account for repression and for the occurrence of neurotic symptoms in terms of detachable and displaceable quantities of affect?charge (cathexis) has continued to be a basic aspect of psychoanalytic theory. This is unfortunate since the account is inadequate and its central concept, that of a quantity of energy, is unsuited to the task at hand. We see that, despite the appropriateness of describing neurotic behavior in dynamic/economic terms, the use of energy concepts on the theoretical level is an explanatory dead?end