HEDONIC CAPACITY: Some Conjectures

One important historical consequence of the discoveries of Freud and his co-workers has been the widespread acceptance among psycho-therapists (of various persuasions, many of whom would not describe themselves as “Freudian”) of what might be labeled the impedance view of almost all psychological aberration. In suggesting this locution I do not mean to pseudo-solve theoretical or therapeutic problems by a piece of novel semantics. Because I want to avoid discussing theoretical and technical differences among psychotherapists who would object to formulations in the “proper Freudian ” terminology (e.g., resistance, defense, superego anxiety) while I focus attention upon a view that is ubiquitous and rarely questioned, I use the term impedance for it is descriptive and fairly neutral with respect to other theoretical and tactical controversies. The essence of the impedance view of psychological malfunc-tioning and suffering can be simply stated: Most (all?) persons who seek professional help because of what they (or their friends, relatives, or internists) perceive as “psychological problems ” are in psycho-logical trouble because of the existence of certain mental forces or structures that impede effective behavior and resultant subjective impulse gratification. From this simple principle—that the trouble with neurotics is some psychological force impeding their functioning— it should be obvious that the theoretical posture and the therapeuti