Are you familiar with the concept of recalcitrance in psychoanalysis? No? Now you can learn all about the definition of recalcitrance, its causes and consequences, and its importance to psychoanalysis. Are you curious? Then read on!

When we refer to Freudian metapsychology, the concept of recalque In "The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement," the founding physician of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, states that "recalcitrance is the fundamental pillar on which the edifice of psychoanalysis rests.

What is recalcitrance?

Download is an expression in psychoanalysis that designates a process that pushes impulses, desires, or experiences that would be painful or unacceptable to the conscious into the unconscious, with the goal of avoiding anxiety or other internal psychic conflict. At the same time, this repressed psychic energy seeks to express itself in another way: through phobias or obsessive pangs, for example.

The repression, then, can generate neurotic symptoms or behaviors considered problematic, since the repressed contents continue to influence the subject without him knowing it consciously. The psychoanalytic work in clinic will be to promote dialogues with the patient to bring to light possible unconscious experiences and behavior patterns. By becoming aware, thesubject patient will be able to elaborate on this and eliminate or minimize the psychic disturbances that were being generated.

We can think of it in the following way meaning of recalcitus in psychoanalysis :

• A traumatic experience or a perception that the ego resists accepting for itself This is the repression: an initial object that is potentially painful to the human psyche is repressed, that is, it becomes unconscious .
• This occurs to preventing the conscious from encountering that pain This is to avoid reliving in the present the initial discomfort as it happened; then the consciousness detaches itself from the initial object.

But this psychic energy that is in the unconscious is not undone. It seeks unusual ways to "escape" and come to the surface. And it does this through associations of which the subject is not aware. This will already be a new phase of this process, which we will see as a return of the repressed.

What is the return of the repressed?

• The repressed content does not remain calmly repressed. It returns to the psychic life indirectly, by means of psychic and somatic associations, that is, it can affect mental life and can also have physical manifestations (as occurs in hysteria).
• This "energy" finds an alternative representative (object) to become visible or conscious: the mental symptoms (such as phobias, hysterias, obsessions, etc.) are the form that most generates discomfort to the subject, although these transformations can also manifest themselves as dreams, fallacious acts, and chitzes.
• What is perceptible (conscious) is called manifest content, which is the part of the recalcitrant that returns. This is why it is said that there is a return of the repressed. E.g., a symptom that the subject perceives, or like a dream that he reports.
• What has been repressed in the unconscious is called latent content .

How do you bring into consciousness a recalcitrant?

To understand what psychoanalysis is and how it is treated, it is important to realize that:

• O conscious manifest content that manifests itself as a symptom is the result of a latent content that is unconscious.
• Overcoming discomfort demands understand these potentially unconscious mechanisms and elaborate Only then will it be possible to move towards a condition of "cure" or "improvement".
• Alone, the subject, as a rule, cannot look at himself and perceive the link that exists between the manifest (perceptible) content and the latent (unconscious) content.
• Hence the importance of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalyst. Using the free association method psychoanalyst and analyzing will elaborate hypotheses to understand the psychic system and to understand the signs of the unconscious, based on the information brought by the subject-analyzing in the clinic.

Understanding better the concept of recalcitrance

Although accurately identified in German, the term "recalque" encounters terminological variations when expressed in other languages: in French, "refoulement", in English "repression", in Spanish, "represión", and in Portuguese, three translations, namely "repression", "recalque", and "recalcamento".

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According to the Vocabulary of Psychoanalysis, by Jean Laplanche and J-B Pontalis, the authors choose the terms "repression" and "recalcitrance". If we refer to the terms "repression" and "recalcitation", we will observe that the first refers to an action exerted on someone from the outside, while the second refers to a process intrinsic to the individual, set in motion by theown self.

In this way, "repression or recalcitrance" are the terms that come closest to the meaning used by Freud in his work. Notwithstanding this observation, it is necessary to emphasize that the concept of repression does not disregard external events experienced by the individual. In this case, these aspects are represented by censorship and the law.

The Concept of Recalcitrance in the History of Thought

From a historical perspective, Johann Friedrich Herbart was the one who most closely approximated the term used by Freud when the subject is recalcitrance. Starting from Leibniz, Herbart arrives at Freud, passing through Kant. For Herbart, "representation, acquired through the senses, and as being the constituent element of the soul life.

The conflict between the representations was, for Herbart, the fundamental principle of psychic dynamism. To delimit the similarities between this concept and the term used by Freud, it is necessary to highlight the fact that "the representations rendered unconscious by the effect of the repression, were not destroyed or had their force reduced. But while unconscious, they remained battlingto become conscious".

Still from the historical perspective, in his important writings, Freud himself states some facts about the Theory of Recalcitrance that he promulgated. According to him, the theory would correspond to a total novelty, because until then it did not appear in the theories about the soul life.

Recalcitrance in the Freudian Work

Although they present points of similarity, it is important to point out that the theories cannot be taken as univocal, since Herbart did not do, as Freud did, the feat of attributing to the recalcitrance the cleavage of the psychism into two different instances, that is, into the Conscious and the Preconscious System. In the same way, Herbart also did not enunciate a theory of the Unconscious, having maintainedrestricted to a Psychology of Consciousness.

Although the German term "Verdrängung" has been present since Sigmund Freud's first writings, the recalcitrance begins to take shape at a later time, gaining relevance only when Sigmund Freud is confronted with the phenomenon of resistance.

How and Why Does Backfill Exist?

For Freud, resistance represents an external sign of defense, with the goal of keeping the threatening idea out of consciousness .

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Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that the defense is exercised by the "I" over one or a set of representations that would awaken feelings of shame and pain. It is known that the term defense was originally used to designate a protection against an excitation coming from an internal source (pulsions).

In his writings of 1915, Freud asks "Why should a pulsional motion be victim of such a fate (recalcitrance)?" This happens because the way to satisfy this pulsion can end up producing more displeasure than pleasure. It is always necessary to take into consideration, when it comes to the satisfaction of a pulsion, the "economy" present in the process.

Since a satisfaction that provides pleasure in one aspect, can mean great displeasure in another aspect, the "condition for the repressing" is established from that moment on. For this psychic phenomenon to happen, it is necessary that the power of the displeasure be greater than that of the satisfaction.

Conclusion

Finally, it is necessary to keep in mind that the recalcitrant impedes the passage from image to word In other words, it is as if the recalcitrant experience or idea is left without a clear face in the unconscious, generating discomfort. In other words, what the recalcitrant does is not eliminate the unconscious, but, on the contrary, it operates its constitution and this unconscious, partly constituted by the recalcitrant. And then,continues to insist in the sense of making possible a satisfaction of the drive.

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