Changes

The [[notion ]] of the [[hallucinatory ]] [[satisfaction ]] of a [[wish ]] is one of the key elements in the [[Freudian ]] conception of [[psychic ]] functioning. It postulates that, under certain [[conditions]], there is an intense [[need]], transformed into a wish for an [[object ]] from which satisfaction is expected, which, under certain circumstances can produce sensations that are attributed wrongly to an [[external ]] [[agent]], yet [[present ]] all the characteristics of [[reality]]. This is hallucinatory satisfaction.

These certain conditions can be of four kinds: the immaturity of the [[psyche ]] of the newborn [[baby]], [[dreams]], problems in psychic functioning in certain neurotics, or certain [[psychoses]], called, as a matter of fact, delusional.

Concerning the first kind, [[Freud ]] expressed, from the [[time ]] of his [[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology ]] (1950a [1895]), a hypothesis that must be placed among the founding ones of [[psychoanalysis]]. What are the possible outlets, he asked, for the "need that has been excited" in the [[child]]? The child has no means of [[autonomous ]] satisfaction at its disposal, so that "the [[primal ]] powerlessness of the [[human ]] [[being ]] becomes the earliest source of all [[moral ]] notions" (in [[other ]] [[words]]: of the entire psychic [[life]], insofar as it is pointed toward the wish—the italics are Freud's). An "[[experience ]] of satisfaction" can ensue, because of an intervening [[adult ]] who creates an [[association ]] between the two "mnemic [[images]]," that of need (or wish) and that of satisfaction. The reappearance of the former can, when the need (wish) is intense, reactivate this association: "Now, when the [[state ]] of urgency or wishing reappears, the [[cathexis ]] will also [[pass ]] over on to the two [[memories ]] and will activate [[them]]. . . . I do not [[doubt ]] that in the first [[instance ]] this wishful activation will produce the same [[thing ]] as a [[perception]], namely a [[hallucination]]" (1950c, p. 319), Freud adding forthwith: "If reflex [[action ]] is thereupon introduced, disappointment cannot fail to occur."

This [[idea ]] was taken up again a few years later in The [[Interpretation ]] of Dreams: "The first wishing seems to have been a hallucinatory cathecting of the [[memory ]] of a satisfaction. Such [[hallucinations]], however, if they were not to be maintained to the point of exhaustion, proved to be inadequate to bring [[about ]] the cessation of the need or, accordingly, the [[pleasure ]] attaching to satisfaction" (1900a, p. 598).

As Freud wrote, in 1911, in a [[text ]] called "Formulations on the Two Principles of [[Mental ]] Functioning": "The state of [[psychical ]] rest was originally disturbed by the peremptory [[demands ]] of [[internal ]] [[needs]]. When this happened, whatever was [[thought ]] of (wished for) was simply presented in a hallucinatory manner, just as still happens to-day with our [[dream]]-[[thoughts ]] every night. It was only the non-occurrence of the expected satisfaction, the disappointment experienced, that led to the abandonment of this attempt at satisfaction by means of hallucination." At this point the reality [[principle ]] is introduced, supplanting the [[pleasure principle]]. Freud answered a possible objection in a note at the bottom of the page: a being totally under the sway of the pleasure principle could not survive "for the shortest time," responding, in fact: "the infant—provided one includes with it the care it receives from its mother—does almost realize a psychical [[system ]] of this kind. It probably hallucinates the fulfillment of its internal needs" (1911b, pp. 219-220). This "provided one includes with it the care it receives from its [[mother]]" was well remembered by a [[number ]] of later authors, especially Donald [[Winnicott]].

The notion returned in "A Metapsychological [[Supplement ]] to the [[Theory ]] of Dreams" (1916-17f, p. 231): "At the beginning of our mental life we did in fact hallucinate the [[satisfying ]] object when we felt the need for it. But in such a [[situation ]] satisfaction did not occur, and this failure must very soon have moved us to create some contrivance with the [[help ]] of which it was possible to distinguish such wishful perceptions from a [[real ]] fulfillment and to avoid them for the [[future]]. In other words, we gave up hallucinatory satisfaction of our wishes at a very early period and set up a kind of 'reality-testing."'

There is a certain hesitancy in these [[texts ]] of Freud between the [[terms ]] need and wish ; and only in his later [[work ]] did Freud come to distinguish them more clearly, need being defined as the expression of an [[organic ]] function (hunger, [[sexual ]] and so forth), wish as something mental when this need is transformed into the wish to have an object. Accordingly, the status of the [[drive]], as a "border [[concept]]" (between psyche and soma) is put into question (cf., among [[others]], Laplanche, 1987).

As a matter of fact, in all his writings Freud insisted on the "disappointment" following "inevitably" on hallucinatory satisfaction (a hallucination of milk supplies no nourishment . . .). Accordingly, a [[reality principle ]] is set up at the same time [[representation ]] is [[born]], pointing to what is "here [[inside]]," not, as in the [[case ]] of perception, to what is "also [[outside]]" (1925h).

This notion was utilized by Freud, in very similar terms, in his theory about dreams (1900a): the dream is, in effect, a realization of a wish. In the framework of psychic functioning, cut off from perception and motor functions, "[[excitation ]] follows a retrograde way." There is a "[[topographical ]] [[regression]]," and a restitution of "the [[identity ]] of perception," or an association between the "images" of the movement of [[desire ]] and its satisfaction; but also regression to a [[primitive ]] functioning as "the dream is a fragment of [[infantile ]] psychic life." If the pleasure principle prevails momentarily over the reality principle, this sort of satisfaction is quite liable to take on a hallucinatory quality.

At the same time as he was forming these theories, Freud was also approximating dream functioning to the function of [[psycho]]-[[neurotic ]] [[defense ]] mechanisms, in [[particular ]] those of [[hysteria]]: certain [[hysterical ]] [[symptoms]], especially those affecting perception, can be explained by an analogous [[schema]].

Psychoses lend themselves particularly well to the hallucinatory satisfaction of wishes, and, moreover, in a waking state: "In psychoses these ancient and [[repressed ]] modes of psychic work [[return ]] in force," as the [[analysis ]] of the [[Schreber ]] case (Freud, 1911c) showed dramatically.

Sándor Ferenczi (1913) took up the schema of Freud and used it to account for the omnipotence of thought, such as is observable in the young child ("[[stage ]] of hallucinatory magical omnipotence," characteristic of infantile [[megalomania]]), but also of [[obsessional ]] [[structures]].

Foremost among later authors who were interested in this question is [[Donald Winnicott ]] (1971), who gave a further nuance to the idea by introducing the notions of [[illusion ]] and transitional [[space]], and also by describing the [[process ]] of progressive re-autonomization of the mother (beyond the "primal [[maternal ]] [[madness]]," prolonged temporarily by the symbiosis of pregnancy). He saw in this the condition for the advent of disappointments, which in the Freudian [[model ]] were both inevitable and necessary: the mother became "very [[good]]," but would be also "very bad." Winnicott wrote that a "perfect" mother, that is to say, one who immediately [[satisfied ]] all her child's needs, "could be [[nothing ]] but a hallucination." Denise Braunschweig and Michel Fain (1975) developed an analogous idea in a different [[theoretical ]] context, opposing the "day mother" to the "night mother."

In this respect, the studies of André Green (1993) should be mentioned; he did significant work on "negativity," on the basis of a case of [[negative ]] hallucination (where a perception is banished from [[existence]]). Equally the work of César and Sára Botella are relevant, centering on the concept of the "hallucinatory," the term being taken as a substantive, as a description of a vast processual set.

See also: Amentia; Convenience, dream of; Experience of satisfaction; [[Interpretation of Dreams]], The; Wish/yearning; Wish-fulfillment; [[Word]]-presentation.[[Bibliography]]