Displacement [Verschiebung]

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error
  • The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

In his early psychoanalytic work

Project for a Scientific Psychology

(1895), and in his study of hysterical symptoms, Sigmund Freud recognised that it was possible in the psyche for the emotional affect of an experience to separated from the original idea and transferred to other occasions and experiences. For example, in cases of hysteria the energy involved in creating the paralysis of a limb might be redirected by anxieity, fear or guilt from a natural sexual expression. In the analysis he later proposed in

Interpretation of Dreams

(1900), displacement becomes one of the two major mechanisms in the formation of dream symbols (the other is Condensation.) Displacement usually involves the transfer of the emotional or ideational affect from its original source to another symbol in theā€¦

468 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "Displacement [Verschiebung]". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 October 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=282, accessed 19 March 2024.]

282 Displacement [Verschiebung] 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.