200: Freud III: Metapsychology/ Narcissism/ Masochism
Instructor(s)
September 10 – December 10, 2025
Wednesdays, 8:40 – 10:00 pm
No class: 10/1, 11/26
CLICK HERE for Zoom link if you are attending class remotely
Co-requisites
Candidates must have at least one case in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible to take second year courses.
Course Description
This is the third segment in a course that examines the evolution of Freud’s theory. The centerpiece of this segment is, “Papers on Metapsychology,” a sequence of five papers published by Freud in 1915. In these papers Freud returns to an exploration of how the mind works at the abstract level of generalizable principles and concepts, not explored in such depth since Ch. 7 of The Interpretation of Dreams. We will also read landmark papers that introduce and/or explore concepts such as narcissism, the ego ideal, object relations, and masochism. We will begin the course with discussion of three contemporaneously published technique papers that provide a clinical backdrop and context for examining Freud’s theoretical advances.
Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
1. explain Freud’s view of instincts and what he means by their vicissitudes
2. explain Freud’s concept of narcissism and its relationship to his newly introduced structure, the ego ideal
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
READINGS FOR 2025 CLASS ARE CONFIRMED.
CLICK HERE for Zoom link if you are attending class remotely
CLASS 1: September 10, 2025
Basic Questions to be Taken Up in Class:
- What is a wish?
- What constitutes an “experience of satisfaction”?
- What is Primary Process, Secondary Process?
- What is “the bitter experience of life”?
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1900) “Wish Fulfillment”, Interpretation of Dreams SE V: 550-573.
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CLASS 2: September 17, 2025
Basic Questions to be Taken Up in Class:
- What is transference?
- What is transferred?
- What is conscious transference?
- What is unconscious transference?
- What leads Freud to conclude that transference is always/necessarily
grounded in sexual fantasy? - Prepare a clinical/cultural or personal example of “transference”
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1912) The Dynamics of Transference SE XII: 97-108.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Wilson, M. (2019). The proleptic unconscious and the exemplary moment in psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 100:1084-1101.
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CLASS 3: September 24, 2025
Divide the reading into two parts: (1) pp. 117-126; (2) 126-140
While reading Part 1, try to link “instincts” to “transference”—what links can you sense?
Part (1) provides conceptualization of what an instinct is, what it does, what its properties are, and what the relations between instincts derived from various sources might be. The questions here then are:
- How does Freud define “instinct”?
2) How is instinct the same as/different from “stimuli”—
3) For an emerging organism, what is the essential difference between “inside” and “outside”
4) What are the four fundamental properties of an instinct?
5) What are the two categories of instinct?
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1915) Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, SE XIV:110-140.
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CLASS 4: October 8, 2025
Part (2) elaborates on the workings of instinct—understanding this part depends upon understanding Part (1), so our first and most important task is to nail down Part 1. Only once we do that, can we reasonably focus on Part 2.
Questions for Part 2:
1)What are the two basic vicissitudes that instincts can undergo?
2)Describe the transformations that lead from sadism to masochism—think about the aim remaining constant while only the object changes.
3) Describe how sadism begins as an impulse to dominate but then develops into an impulse to both dominate and inflict pain.
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1915) Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, SE XIV:110-140.
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CLASS 5: October 15, 2025
Provide a convincing example of the presence of unconscious forces. Two ways to do this:
1) Show how by employing the notion of unconscious forces you can enhance the meaning of what otherwise would lack meaning.
2) Show how by employing the notion of unconscious forces you have been able to use those forces to manifestly influence consciousness.
I hope each of us might offer examples of the workings of unconscious forces—by using our own clinical experiences or by using any extra-clinical material.
Describe the three systems: Cs., Pcs., Ucs. What is the difference between “unconscious” when used as an adjective and “Unconscious” when used to name a system.
Describe the difference in the censorship operating between systems Ucs/Pcs and the censorship operating between systems Pcs/Cs.
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1915) The Unconscious, SE XIV:161-215.
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CLASS 6: October 22, 2025
1) What are the three metapsychological points of view?
2) What might Freud be getting at when he says the system Ucs. Is timeless, knows no contradictions, etc.
3) What then is included in the system Ucs—ideas, yes, but in what form;
4) Ucs. Ideas take form as they pass thru the censor dividing Ucs from Pcs—they become related to each other in the form of sentences; narratives: can we make sense of this? Is it useful?
5) What does Freud say about “word cathexes” and “thing cathexes”. At what point in the topography does an unconscious idea get attached to words.
6) Words are the necessary but not sufficient requirement for an idea to enter consciousness—can we make sense of this? Is it useful?
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1915) The Unconscious, SE XIV:161-215.
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CLASS 7: October 29, 2025
- How does Freud distinguish between the transference neuroses and what he calls the narcissistic neuroses? What would make the latter category potentially beyond the reach of psychoanalytic treatment?
- Ego instincts, ego-libido, object-libido: how does Freud conceptualize them; how might they be useful to us; how might they have outlasted their utility?
- What happens to object libido when a person suffers a very painful toothache or suffers pain in general. How does the change of experience from being pain-free to being in pain illuminate notions of object libido and narcissism?
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1914) On Narcissism, S.E. XIV: 67-102. [Read to page 85]
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CLASS 8: November 5, 2025
Freud, S. (1927). Ego and the Id, SE XIX: 28-39.
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CLASS 9: November 12, 2025
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1924). The Economic Problem of Masochism. SE XIX: 155-170
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CLASS 10: November 19, 2025
- What is the work of mourning? What instigates mourning? What
brings it to a conclusion? - How does the instigating cause of melancholia resemble the
instigating cause of mourning? - In mourning the object world is diminished; in melancholia the ego
is diminished. How can we formulate this difference? - What is the relation between melancholia and narcissism?
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1917) Mourning and Melancholia, SE XIV: 239-258.
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CLASS 11: December 3, 2025
CLASS 12: December 10, 2025
- What is the pleasure principle?
- What requirement would have to be met for a psychic event to qualify as “beyond” it?
- What might account for commonplace increases in tension even in the face of an operative principle of pleasure?
- How does Freud define “trauma”? How do you?
- What might the distinction be between, say, “very difficult” and “traumatic”? Does that distinction matter?
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, S. (1920) Beyond the Pleasure Principle, SE XVIII: 3-64.
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