ABSTRACT
The concept of displacement has a complex history in psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud's original idea was clear. Displacement is a shift in emphasis and salience; little things are made to stand out and big things are obscured. Displacement of object can also involve turning one's feeling toward others back onto oneself. Displacement of object is the essence of transference; feelings toward parents or other significant figures of early life are displaced onto the psychoanalyst or another person in one's adult life. There is "displacement of emotion" in which an emotion is transformed. The original usage of "displacement of accent" does not make much sense as an analogue of metonymy. The multiple meanings of displacement in Freud is relevant to the well-known analogy that J. Lacan made between displacement and metonymy. Displacement came to include situations in which some aspect of psychic life was shifted, and many different such shifts were identified by Freud.
