Changes

The term [[censorship ]] in everyday [[language ]] connotes ideas of blame and [[repression ]] of faults.

This is how it appears in [[Freud ]] in [[Studies on Hysteria]]:

<blockquote>"we are very often astonished to realize in what a mutilated [[state ]] all the [[ideas ]] and scenes emerged which we extracted from the patient by procedure of pressing. Precisely the essential elements of the picture were [[missing ]] [...] I will give one or two examples of the way in which a censoring of this kind operates . . ." (<ref>1895b, p. 281-282).</ref></blockquote>

In a [[letter ]] to [[Wilhelm Fleiss (]]<ref>December 22, 1897, in 1950a) </ref> he compares this [[psychic ]] [[work ]] to the [[censorship ]] that the czarist [[regime ]] imposed on Russian newspapers at the [[time]]:  <blockquote>"Words, sentences and whole paragraphs are blacked out, with the result that the remainder is unintelligible" (1950a, p. 240).</blockquote>

[[Freud ]] seems to be describing the deliberate [[suppression ]] by patients[[patient]]s, in their [[communication ]] with the doctor, of what they do not wish to reveal to him, as well as the [[mechanism ]] and effects of [[unconscious ]] [[repression (]].<ref>1896b). </ref>

A second [[meaning ]] appears when he evokes the [[censorship ]] which, in [[dream-work]], results in a [[manifest ]] [[text ]] [[being ]] presented as a riddle (.<ref>[[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]], 1900a).</ref>

The metapsychological [[texts ]] of 1915 elaborate on the distinctions outlined in chapter seven of the [[Interpretation of Dreams]].

[[Censorship ]] is in fact defined as that which opposes the [[return ]] of that which is [[repressed]], at the two successive levels in the passage from the [[unconscious ]] to the [[preconscious ]] (the "antechamber") and on to the [[conscious ]] (the "drawing-room") (.<ref>1915e).</ref>

[[Censorship ]] is thus clearly distinguished from [[repression]]: whereas [[repression ]] rejects a [[representation ]] and/or an [[affect ]] into the [[unconscious]], [[censorship ]] is what prevents it from re-emerging.

[[Freud ]] nevertheless confuses this [[distinction ]] later when he writes, for example:

<blockquote>"We [[know ]] the [[self]]-observing [[agency ]] as the ego-censor, the [[conscience]]; it is this that exercises the dream-censorship during the night, from which the repressions of inadmissible wishful impulses proceed." (<ref>1916-17a, p. 429).</ref></blockquote>

With the introduction of the [[structural theory ]] [[Freud ]] made a new distinction, with the [[ego ]] becoming the [[agent ]] of the [[censorship ]] under the superego—the [[superego]]—the merciless supervisor (.<ref>1923b).</ref>

Although the [[notion ]] of [[censorship ]] continues to be fairly widely used in [[psychoanalysis ]] to describe [[resistance ]] to the [[treatment]], it has scarcely received any further elaboration and its [[global ]] [[nature ]] may [[cause ]] it to appear to be somewhat outmoded.

* [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1895b). On the grounds for detaching a [[particular ]] syndrome from neurasthenia under the description "[[anxiety ]] [[neurosis]]." SE, 3: 85-115.* ——. (1896b). Further remarks on the neuro-[[psychoses ]] of [[defence]]. SE, 3: 157-185.* ——. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4-5.

* ——. (1923b). The ego and [[The Id|the id]]. SE, 19: 1-66.* ——. (1950a). Extracts from the [[Fliess ]] papers. SE, 1: 173-280.