PAIRS OF OPPOSITES

Freud uses the term "pairs of opposites" to designate the pairing of two apparently contradictory terms and, beyond this, the two psychic phenomena to which these terms refer. Freud refers to the idea in his correspondence with Wilhelm Fliess, to whom he writes on March 2, 1899, "I can hardly wait for Easter to show you in detail a principal part of the story of wish fulfillment and of the coupling of opposites" (1985c [1887-1904]). Curiously, despite Freud's alleged impatience, there is no further sign of this elaboration, at least in the published correspondence, where Freud restricts himself to setting out the uncertainties and contradictions that he is experiencing in relation to his work.

Freud thus restricts himself, inadvertently perhaps, to working out the essence of what he understands by the pairing of opposites, as he clearly states in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d): "Certain among the impulses to perversion occur regularly as pairs of opposites" (p. 160). He then refers to the pairs sadism/masochism and masculine/feminine, also mentioning activity/passivity in an addition in 1915. In the same text he emphasizes, "An especially prominent part is played . . . by the component instincts, which emerge for the most part as pairs of opposites: . . . the scopophilic instinct [the gaze] and exhibitionism and the active and passive forms of the instinct for cruelty" (p. 166).

The vagaries of the transference highlight these oppositions. Often the negative transference is found "side by side with the affectionate transference, often directed simultaneously towards the same person. Bleuler has coined the excellent term 'ambivalence' to describe this phenomenon" (Freud, 1912b, p. 106).

Freud returned to the sadism/masochism pair in a note added in 1924 to the text of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. There he wrote that his recent observation, as outlined in "The Economic Problem of Masochism" (1924c), led him "to assign a peculiar position, based upon the origin of the instincts, to the pair of opposites constituted by sadism and masochism" (1905d, p. 159n). This derives directly from the structure of the second theory of drives, in which the life instinct and death instinct form a pair of opposites that directs all the other drives.

The concept of pairs of opposites, which might seem narrowly descriptive, in fact involves some fundamental aspects of metapsychology. Specifically, this concept relates to the conflict at the core of the processes of the psyche, with its drives and ambivalences.

The dualistic nature of Freud's thought, which he adduced to explain and pair apparently contradictory terms and concepts, has often been emphasized. Yet this Freudian dialectic has nothing to do with the dialectic of classical Aristotelian logic or of modern Hegelian philosophy. When Freud indicates a contradiction, he seeks to demonstrate the underlying conflict generating it. The contradiction itself is but a secondary transposition at the level of conscious thought. Hence, Freud's solution to contradiction is not Hegelian transcendence, but a dynamic and economic process of psychic transcendence.

Roger Perron

See also: Activity/passivity; Conflict; Death instinct (Thanatos); "Instincts and Their Vicissitudes"; Life instinct (Eros); Masculinity/femininity; Reversal into the opposite; Sadomasochism.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.

——. (1912b). The dynamics of transference. SE, 12: 97-108.

——. (1924c). The economic problem of masochism. SE, 19: 155-170.

——. (1950a [1887-1902]). Extracts from the Fliess papers. SE, 1: 173-280.

——. (1985c [1887-1904]). The complete letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904 (Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.