Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/177

Rh itself against those descendants of the initial repressed reminiscence, and in this conflict of defense it produces symptoms which may be comprehended as "secondary defense." These are througout "protective measures" which have performed good service in the struggle carried on against the obsessions and the obsessing affects. If these helps in the conflict of the defense really succeed in repressing anew the symptoms of return obtruding themselves on the ego, the compulsion then transmits itself on the protective measures themselves and produces a third form of the "compulsion neurosis," the compulsive action. These are never primary, they never contain anything else but a defense, never an aggression. Psychic analysis shows that despite their peculiarity they can always be fully explained by reduction to the compulsive reminiscence which they oppose.

The secondary defense of the obsessions can be brought about by a forcible deviation to other thoughts of possibly contrary content; hence, in case of success there is a compulsive reasoning, regularly concerning abstract and transcendental subjects, because the repressed ideas always occupied themselves with the sensuous.