dis·charge • v. / disˈchärj/ [tr.] 1. (often be discharged) tell (someone) officially that they can or must leave, in particular: ∎  send (a patient) out of the hospital because they are judged fit to go home. ∎  dismiss or release (someone) from a job, esp. from service in the armed forces or police. ∎  release (someone) from the custody or restraint of the law: he ordered that 1,671 prisoners of war be discharged from prison. ∎  relieve (a juror or jury) from serving in a case. ∎  Law relieve (a bankrupt) of liability. ∎  release (a party) from a contract or obligation: the insurer is discharged from liability from the day of breach.2. allow (a liquid, gas, or other substance) to flow out from where it has been confined: industrial plants discharge highly toxic materials into rivers | [intr.] the overflow should discharge in an obvious place. ∎  (of an orifice or diseased tissue) emit (pus, mucus, or other liquid): the swelling will eventually break down and discharge pus | [intr.] the eyes and nose began to discharge. ∎  (often be discharged) Physics release or neutralize the electric charge of (an electric field, battery, or other object): the electrostatic field that builds up on a monitor screen can be discharged | [intr.] batteries have a tendency to discharge slowly. ∎  (of a person) fire (a gun or missile): when you shoot you can discharge as many barrels as you wish. ∎  [intr.] (of a firearm) be fired: there was a dull thud as the gun discharged. ∎  (of a person) allow (an emotion) to be released: he discharged his resentment in the harmless form of memoirs. ∎  unload (cargo or passengers) from a ship: the ferry was discharging passengers | [intr.] ninety ships were waiting to discharge. 3. do all that is required to fulfill (a responsibility) or perform (a duty). ∎  pay off (a debt or other financial claim).4. Law (of a judge or court) cancel (an order of a court). ∎  cancel (a contract) because of completion or breach: an existing mortgage to be discharged on completion.• n. / ˈdisˌchärj/ 1. the action of discharging someone from a hospital or from a job: his discharge from the hospital | offending policemen receive a dishonorable discharge. ∎  Brit. an act of releasing someone from the custody or restraint of the law: four days in jail and one year conditional discharge. ∎  Law the action of relieving a bankrupt from residual liability.2. the action of allowing a liquid, gas, or other substance to flow out from where it is confined. ∎  the quantity of material allowed to flow out in such a way: large volumes of sewage discharge | environmental damage from toxic chemical discharges. ∎  the emission of pus, mucus, or other liquid from an orifice or from diseased tissue: those germs might lead to vaginal discharge | a yellow nasal discharge. ∎  Physics the release of electricity from a charged object: slow discharge of a condenser is fundamental to oscillatory circuits. ∎  a flow of electricity through air or other gas, esp. when accompanied by emission of light: a sizzling discharge between sky and turret. ∎  the action of firing a gun or missile: a police permit for discharge of an air gun | sounds like discharges of artillery. ∎  the action of unloading a ship of its cargo or passengers.3. the action of doing all that is required to fulfill a responsibility or perform a duty: directors must use skill in the discharge of their duties. ∎  the payment of a debt or other financial claim: money paid in discharge of a claim.4. Law the action of canceling an order of a court.DERIVATIVES: dis·charge·a·ble / disˈchärjəbəl/ adj.dis·charg·er / disˈchärjər/ n.

DISCHARGE

An economic term borrowed from a physicalist epistemological model, "discharge" was used by Sigmund Freud in his theorization of how the psychic apparatus deals with excitation. The notion of discharge thus refers to an outward release of the energy produced in the psychic apparatus by excitations, whether these are external or internal in origin.

By virtue of its economic orientation, this notion is part of the metapsychological approach and speaks to the quantitative dimension in Freud's model. Freud discussed discharge when he described the pleasure/unpleasure principle: the pleasure of discharge, the unpleasure of retention. We should recall that according to Freud, the source of the instinct is a state of excitation in the body and its aim is to eliminate this excitation. Obviously, the concept of discharge implies as a corollary the notion of tension, or charge. Pleasure and unpleasure probably depend less upon an exact level of tension than upon the rhythm of variation in tension. The principle of pleasure/unpleasure is thus considered a particular case of Gustav Fechner's "tendency toward stability," that "tendency" becoming in this instance the "principle of consistency."

Consistency is said to be achieved by means of the discharge of the energy already present, but also by the avoidance of factors that might increase the quantity of excitation. The principle of consistency is indeed basic to Freud's economic theory and is closely linked with the pleasure principle. The psychic apparatus, in this view, also tends to cancel out excitations or reduce them to a minimum, and Freud, following Barbara Low, called this the "Nirvana principle," which works in tandem with the principle of inertia. It is in this realm that the forces of Thanatos lurk; moroever, it was in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g), where the death instinct is introduced, that Freud explicitly formulated the principle of consistency and related it to the Nirvana principle.

Discharge can be total or partial; it can be appropriate or it can contribute to psychopathological, even psychodramatic disorders. The notion thus appears in Freud's discussions of "abreaction" or "acting-out," when there is insufficient regulation of excitation by the psychic apparatus. Another possibility is discharge into the body, which suggests the mysterious leap from the psychic to the somatic, the notion of somatic compliance, and the phenomenon of conversion. Freud also mentioned the pathogenic role of defective discharge in considering the model of actual neurosis, and in presenting the hypothesis of the damming up of the libido to explain the phenomenon of hypochondria. Still in the context of discharge, the soma as an internal safety-valve has been viewed as a way of handling tensions that cannot be worked through or that are too massive—in short, a kind of somatic "acting-in."

Alain Fine

See also: Cathartic method; Emotion; Excitation; Free energy/bound energy; Fusion/defusion of Instincts; Plea-sure/unpleasure principle; Primary process/secondary process; Principle of constancy; Psychic energy; Quantitative/qualitative; Reality principle; Repression; Thought; Trauma; Unpleasure; Working through.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1914c). On narcissism: an introduction. SE, 14, 67-102.

——. (1920g). Beyond the pleasure principle. SE, 18, 1-64.

——. (1926d [1925]). Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety. SE, 20, 75-172.

Marty, Pierre, et al. (1968) Le cas Dora et le point de vue psychosomatique. Revue française de psychanalyse, 32,4.

discharge A measure of the water flow at a particular point, e.g. a river gauging station, sewage works, or groundwater abstraction well. Various units of measurement are in common use depending on the nature of the discharge being measured. River flow may be expressed in cubic metres per second (misleadingly called ‘cumecs’ in some literature), while borehole flows may be more conveniently expressed as litres per second.

discharge A measure of the water flow, expressed as volume per unit time, at a particular point (e.g. a river gauging station, sewage works, or groundwater abstraction well. Various units of measurement are in common use, depending on the nature of the discharge being measured. River flow may be expressed in cubic metres per second (misleadingly called ‘cumecs’ in some literature), while borehole flows may be more conveniently expressed as litres per second.

DISCHARGE

To liberate or free; to terminate or extinguish. A discharge is the act or instrument by which a contract or agreement is ended. A mortgage is discharged if it has been carried out to the full extent originally contemplated or terminated prior to total execution.

Discharge also means to release, as from legal confinement in prison or the military service, or from some legal obligation such as jury duty, or the payment of debts by a person who is bankrupt. The document that indicates that an individual has been legally released from the military service is called a discharge.

The performance of a duty discharges it. An attorney may speak of discharging a legal obligation.