ABSTRACT
Freud makes an extraordinary claim about self-conscious reflection when it occurs in an obsessional neurotic like Mr R: ‘The thought-process itself becomes sexualized, for the sexual pleasure which is normally attached to the content of thought becomes shifted on to the activity of thinking itself.’18 Freud’s conception of sexuality is very different from the popular conception – as we shall see in Chapter 2. But, for now, we can see Freud’s point: in an obsessional like Mr R, the activity of thinking takes on its own peculiar pleasure, and it takes on a life of its own. In this way, it subverts the thinking process. If Mr R were genuinely to consider his guilt, his thinking would need to stay on target, aim towards some kind of resolution. Instead, the thinking itself becomes so charged that it becomes ever more loosely moored to its content. Officially he is reflecting on his guilt, but as he goes back and forth – ‘Should I feel guilty? But it wasn’t my fault! Maybe it was? What a bad person I am!’ – we lose a sense that the thinking really is about his guilt. It is more like a back-and-forth activity in which ‘guilty’ thoughts are traded, but the endless activity is barely about anything at all. The ‘thinking’ goes on without end because that has become its aim.
