Displacement

DISPLACEMENT (Verdrangung), a concept introduced into psychology by Freud to denote a special mechanism by which pathogenic experiences, primarily infantile drives, are pushed out of the sphere of consciousness as they come into conflict with the aesthetic and social-ethical norms of the individual, who is in the process of growing and adapting to the environment. The repressed drives, sinking into the realm of the unconscious, do not, however, lose their effective energy; both in normal cases and especially in pathological cases, they find roundabout paths for discharge, in the form of so-called symptomatic actions (in the healthy person) and morbid symptoms (in the neurotic). The mechanism of displacement can easily be explained within the framework of purely physiological explanations, based on the principle of 'incompatible dominants' (Ukhtomsky). Of two competing dominants, one undergoes inhibition, becomes a subdominant, but while retaining a certain degree of its energy tension ('inertia of dominants'), which gives it the possibility to manifest itself to one degree or another. Displacement is one of the basic concepts of psychoanalytic psychology (see Psychoanalysis).