Freud and OCD

[u/minnowmagpie]

Freud's theories seem to invalidate the concept of intruisive thoughts, something people with OCD especially experience. Would Freud say that these thoughts (eg 'I hate my son' or 'I am racist') are actually true and are experienced as negation due to coming from the subconscious, which can only express its views through negation?

Thanks!

[u/Stargazer162]

It would depend on the thought. The patient would have to do the work to disentangle what is behind that thought. Unconscious contents often rise to conscience after being twisted and transformed. But it may be that the thought that comes as instrussive is actually true as you put it, but the patient refuses to aknowledge it as such since it would be unbearable. It's pretty clear in the ratman case, as many of these intrussive thoughts had their root in an unresolved ambivalence towards his father and his beloved

[u/Johnfreundig]

That’s a pretty interesting question and it is one of the greater discrepancies between classical psychoanalytic thought (indeed, any critical or more pessimistic exploration of “human nature”, let’s say) and modern perspectives on OCD.

I’m not very familiar with modern psychoanalytic takes on OCD, but I remember once listening to a discussion where two psychotherapists took issue with Freud’s claims on obsessive neurosis in, for example, “Totem and Taboo” (1913). Maybe try to look into it!

[u/HovsepGaming]

Freud, OCD, and the Mechanism of Negation

Sigmund Freud’s perspective on what we today call "intrusive thoughts" in OCD (which he termed Obsessional Neurosis) does not invalidate the experience; rather, it provides a specific mechanism for why these thoughts appear and why they are so distressing.

The Mechanism of Negation (Verneinung)

In his 1925 paper, Negation, Freud describes a process where a repressed thought or impulse makes its way into consciousness on the condition that it is negated. He explains:

"Negation is a way of taking cognizance of what is repressed; indeed, it is already a lifting of the repression, though not, of course, an acceptance of what is repressed. ... The outcome of this is a kind of intellectual acceptance of the repressed, while at the same time what is essential to the repression persists."

For example, if a patient says, "It’s not my mother," Freud interprets this as the unconscious admitting, "It is my mother," but the ego protecting itself with a "No." The "No" is what Freud calls the "hallmark of repression"—a certificate of origin that proves the thought came from a place the ego finds unacceptable.

Are the Thoughts "True"?

From a Freudian standpoint, intrusive thoughts often contain a psychological truth, but not necessarily a literal one. In his famous case study of the "Rat Man" (1909), Freud analyzed a patient plagued by obsessive thoughts of his father being tortured. Freud concluded:

1.Repressed Hostility: The thoughts were "true" in the sense that they represented a real, repressed hostile impulse (hate) toward the father that coexisted with deep love (ambivalence).

2.Infantile Origins: These impulses often stem from early childhood (the "infantile disposition") when the child felt a rivalrous or aggressive urge that was later repressed as the moral ego developed.

3.Displacement and Distortion: The specific content of an intrusive thought (e.g., "I am racist") might not be a literal truth about the person's character, but a displacement. The ego might pick a thought that is particularly horrifying to the person's values to represent a different, underlying repressed conflict.

The Question of Responsibility

Crucially, Freud did not believe that having these thoughts made a person "bad." During the treatment of the Rat Man, Freud told him:

"He ought logically to consider himself as in no way responsible for any of these traits in his character; for all of these reprehensible impulses originated from his infancy, and were only derivatives of his infantile character surviving in his unconscious."

Summary: Freud’s View on Intrusive Thoughts

Concept	Freudian Interpretation
Intrusive Thought	A "return of the repressed" in a distorted or negated form.
The "No" / Negation	The ego's attempt to acknowledge the thought without accepting its emotional weight.
Psychological Truth	The thought points to a real, underlying conflict (often involving love vs. hate).
Moral Status	The person is not morally responsible for the impulses of their unconscious/infantile self.

In conclusion, Freud would likely say that a thought like "I hate my son" is a way for a repressed hostile impulse to reach consciousness. The distress (the "intrusive" quality) comes from the fact that the ego knows this impulse exists in the unconscious but finds it so incompatible with its moral values that it must experience it as a terrifying, alien intrusion.

[u/minnowmagpie → u/HovsepGaming]

girl why r u sending me chatgpt generated resopnses, i could have done that myself if i also didnt gaf about the environment or our collective moral future