Changes

The [[notion ]] of [[turning around ]] upon the [[subject]]'s own [[self ]] refers to the [[process ]] that substitutes the subject's own self in [[place ]] of the [[external ]] [[object ]] of an [[instinct]]. This term appeared in Sigmund [[Freud]]'s writings in "[[Instincts ]] and Their Vicissitudes" (1915c), where it is discussed as one of the four vicissitudes of the instincts: [[repression]], [[sublimation]], [[reversal ]] into the opposite, or "turning round upon the subject's own self" (p. 126). Freud described this latter process as [[being ]] closely linked to reversal into the opposite and used the study of two [[clinical ]] models to [[understand ]] its effects: [[sadism]]-[[masochism ]] and [[voyeurism]]-[[exhibitionism]].

In sadism there is a manifestation of [[aggression ]] toward [[another ]] person, who is treated as an object. If the object of the instinct becomes the subject's own self, the initial [[instinctual ]] aim simultaneously changes from [[active ]] to [[passive]], because the sadism is then directed against the subject. Turning against the self is demonstrably at [[work ]] even though the subject has not yet subjugated himself to another person. [[Obsessional ]] [[neurosis ]] is [[representative ]] of this intermediary [[stage]], which Freud described as self-punitive rather than masochistic. A final stage consists in the [[search ]] for another person to play the active [[role ]] that the subject renounces, thereby submitting to masochistic [[control]]. One can see how, over the entire trajectory from sadism to masochism, [[turning around upon the subject's own self ]] occurs alongside the transformation of [[activity ]] into [[passivity]], in this [[inversion ]] of roles between the person who exercises sadism and the person subjected to it.

Another pair of opposites, voyeurism-exhibitionism, provides a clear example of the same mechanisms. The [[three ]] successive [[stages ]] played out in the previous example can be found again here. Thus, there is initially "[[looking]]" as an activity that the subject directs against an unknown object, followed by the subject's submission to a turning around of the [[scopic ]] [[drive ]] onto a part of his or her own [[body]]. Finally, the introduction of a [[third ]] element allows the subject to become the object of another person's [[gaze]].

Freud emphasized that these operations as a [[whole ]] do not exhaust all the [[energy ]] of the instinct and that once again, the [[psyche ]] prefers to work upon small quantities of energy. Moreover, it seems that the three stages previously described as unfolding in a linear fashion are in fact all [[present ]] in varying degrees and that they develop in conjunction with one another.

[[Anna Freud ]] included turning against the self in the [[list ]] of [[defense ]] mechanisms enlisted by the ego in its [[struggle ]] against [[guilt]]-inducing instinctual impulses. In The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936), she cited this process as one of the most [[primitive ]] ones, "as old as the [[conflict ]] between the instinctual impulses and whatever obstacle may be erected against [[them]]." However, she revised her attempt to chronologically situate this defense [[mechanism]], as well as [[others]], for [[lack ]] of confirmation during her clinical work. Thus, in [[terms ]] of the mechanism in question, she acknowledged the rarity, in very young [[children]], of [[true ]] masochistic manifestations resulting from a turning around of the instinct back onto the self.

In the [[psychoanalytic ]] [[literature]], this notion is at the crossroads of numerous avenues of [[thought]]. Freud, for example, let it be [[understood ]] that the manifestation of the instinctual vicissitude described here depended on the subject's [[narcissistic ]] organization.

See also: Drive/instinct; [[Identification ]] with the aggressor; "Instincts and their Vicissitudes"; Reversal into the opposite; Self-[[hatred]]; Turning around.[[Bibliography]]