ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shows that, in 1915, Sigmund Freud argued that the hypothesis of the unconscious counters the psychiatric notion of degeneracy and supersedes its explanatory value. Put more concretely, Freud demonstrates that the existence of the unconscious and of unconscious psychic processes make it possible to explain psychically and elucidate so-called consciously inexplicable symptoms. In this sense, the hypothesis of the unconscious, which implies a psychic explanation and determination of neurotic symptoms, renders redundant the notion of degeneracy, which involves a constitutional and hereditary determination of neurotic symptoms. Hence, the author could say that Freud's notion of the unconscious implies that neurotic symptoms, and more generally neurosis as such, can—indeed, must—be explained without calling upon some constitutional, non-psychic element. Thus, the author concludes that the notion of the unconscious implies the idea of psychic causality. All of these writings demonstrate how and to what extent early Freudian theory on psychopathology was influenced by the ideas of Charcot.
