Censorship (psychoanalysis)

Barrier of the conscious and unconscious

In psychoanalysis, Censorship (Zensur) is the force identified by Sigmund Freud as operating to separate consciousness from the unconscious mind.[1]

## In dreaming

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In his 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud identified a force working to disguise the dream-thoughts so as to make them more acceptable to the dreamer. In his wartime lectures, he compared its operation to the contemporary newspapers, where blanks would reveal first-hand the work of the censor, but where allusions, circumlocutions, and other softening techniques also showed attempts to work round the censorship of thoughts in advance.[2] He went on to characterise the motivating force, which he called "the self-observing agency as the ego-censor [Zensor], the conscience; it is this that exercises the dream-censorship [Zensur] during the night, from which the repressions of inadmissable wishful impulses proceed".[3]

Another tool used by the dream-censorship was regression to archaic symbolic forms of expression unfamiliar to the conscious mind.[4] Where all such measures of censorship failed, however, the result could be the development of nightmares and insomnia.[5]

## Psychoanalytic extensions

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Freud found the same effects of disguise and omission taking place in the construction of neurotic symptoms, under the influence of the censorship, as in dreams.[6] He would eventually assign the role of censor to the mental agency he would term the superego.[7]

## Criticism

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Sartre questioned how the censorship could operate unless it was already aware of the contents of the unconscious, and thought the phenomena Freud described could be better understood in terms of bad faith.[8]

## See also

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* Ego ideal
* Screen memory
* Superego resistance

## References

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1. ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism (London 2003) p. x
2. ^ S Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (PFL 1) p. 170-1
3. ^ S Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (PFL 1) p. 479
4. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 48
5. ^ E Berne, A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (Penguin 1976) p. 144-5
6. ^ S Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10) p. 97
7. ^ S Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (PFL 2) p. 57
8. ^ J Webber, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (2007) p. 89

## External links

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* About censorship (Freud)

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Sigmund Freud

Books|

* On Aphasia (1891)
* Studies on Hysteria (1895)
* The Interpretation of Dreams (including On Dreams) (1899)
* The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
* Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
* Totem and Taboo (1913)
* Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916–17)
* The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1917)
* Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921)
* The Ego and the Id (1923)
* The Question of Lay Analysis (1926)
* The Future of an Illusion (1927)
* Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
* Moses and Monotheism (1939)

Essays|

* "The Aetiology of Hysteria" (1896)
* Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905)
* Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva (1907)
* Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming (1908)
* Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood (1910)
* On Narcissism (1914)
* The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1914)
* Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work (1915)
* Thoughts for the Times on War and Death (1916)
* Mourning and Melancholia (1918)
* Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
* Medusa's Head (1922)
* Dostoevsky and Parricide (1928)

Case studies|

* "Dora" (Ida Bauer)
* Emma Eckstein
* Herbert Graf ("Little Hans")
* Irma's injection
* "Anna O." (Bertha Pappenheim)
* "Rat Man"
* Sergei Pankejeff ("Wolfman")
* Daniel Paul Schreber

Original
concepts|

* Psychoanalysis
* Id, ego and superego
* Libido
* Preconscious
* Ego ideal
* censorship
* Free association
* Transference
* Psychosexual development
* Oral stage
* Anal stage
* Phallic stage
* Latency stage
* Genital stage
* Oedipus complex
* Father complex
* Deferred obedience
* Reality principle
* Seduction theory

Related|

* Bibliography
* complete works
* Archives
* Vienna home and museum
* London home and museum
* 1971 statue
* Interment
* Freudian slip
* Humor
* Inner circle
* Neo-Freudianism
* Views on homosexuality
* Religious views

Cultural
depictions|

* Freud: The Secret Passion (1962 film)
* The Visitor (1993 play)
* Mahler on the Couch (2010 film)
* A Dangerous Method (2011 film)
* Freud (2020 TV series)
* Freud's Last Session (2023 film)

Family|

* Martha Bernays (wife)
* Anna Freud (daughter)
* Ernst L. Freud (son)
* Clement Freud (grandson)
* Lucian Freud (grandson)
* Walter Freud (grandson)
* Amalia Freud (mother)
* Jacob Freud (father)
* Edward Bernay (nephew)
* Jofi (dog)

Prizes|

* Sigmund Freud Prize

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Defence mechanisms

Level 1: Pathological|

* Delusional projection
* Denial or abnegation (German: Verneinung)
* Psychotic denial or disavowal (German: Verleugnung)
* Distortion
* Foreclosure or repudiation (German: Verwerfung)
* Extreme projection
* Identification with the Aggressor
* Splitting (Black-and-white thinking)

Level 2: Immature|

* Acting out
* Fantasy
* Idealization
* Introjection (Internalization)
* Passive-aggression
* Projection
* Projective identification
* Somatization

Level 3: Neurotic|

* Displacement
* Dissociation
* Hypochondriasis
* Intellectualization
* Isolation
* Rationalization
* Reaction formation
* Regression
* Repression (German: Verdrängung)
* Undoing

Level 4: Mature|

* Altruism
* Anticipation
* Humour
* Identification
* Sublimation
* Suppression

Other|

* Compartmentalization
* Defensive pessimism
* Minimisation
* Postponement of affect

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