OMNIPOTENCE OF THOUGHTS

The belief that ideas are all-powerful is inherent in animistic thought and belief systems but also common in obsessional neurosis, where the same kind of magical thinking occurs as a symptom. It consists in the belief that one can transform or influence the external world through one's thoughts alone.

In Totem and Taboo (1912-13a), Freud emphasized that he owed the expression "omnipotence of thoughts" to "a highly intelligent man who suffered from obsessional ideas," (p. 85)—in fact, the "Rat Man" (1909d). That it was a question of something symptomatic in nature and not part of a system of thought was clear from the fact that the patient acted on the basis of superstitious ideas that ran counter to his own convictions. At the same time, according to Freud, omnipotence of thoughts underscores a general trait characteristic of every neurosis. "Neurotics . . . are only affected by what is thought with intensity and pictured with emotion, whereas agreement with external reality is a matter of no importance" (1912-13a, p. 86).

Omnipotence relates, in fact, only to thoughts that express or are derived from a repressed wish. Unconscious aims create or modify reality. As such, omnipotent thinking suggests the way an infant may employ hallucination to overcome a perceived lack of some object of gratification. In the adult, it is the attempt to ward off unconscious hostile wishes that leads to animistic thinking and obsessional neurosis.

The concept of omnipotence of thoughts can not be dissociated from narcissistic thinking or narcissism more generally conceived. In "On Narcissism: An Introduction" (1914c), Freud employed the notion of omnipotence of thoughts and desires—in infants, primitive peoples, and schizophrenics—as a means to establish the concept of narcissism theretofore evoked only in Totem and Taboo. That libidinal energy is invested first of all in the ego and, later on, partly in objects suggests how the outside world can be subjected to the power of thoughts. This kind of narcissistic investment will subsequently be found in adult self-esteem, leading to repression of all that fails to conform to the ego ideal; similarly, however, "every remnant of the primitive feeling of omnipotence which . . . experience has confirmed, helps to increase . . . self-regard" (1914c, section 2), which is the very expression of the ego's grandiosity.

To the extent that it originates in primary narcissism, omnipotence of thoughts is a notion susceptible to various elaborations that touch on the earliest modalities of an infant's representation of, and relation to, the external world. Sándor Ferenczi (1916) discussed the development of the sense of reality and emphasized that the child remains attached to omnipotence even after acknowledging that reality must be taken into account. In her discussion of the sense of reality in a four-year-old, Melanie Klein (1923) also underscored the child's belief in omnipotence of thoughts. D. W. Winnicott (1970) showed how maternal care lavished on infants promotes the feeling of omnipotence necessary to evoke the object, who though already present is recognized only through the illusion of creating it.

It is difficult to restrict or impose limits on the concept of omnipotence of thoughts inasmuch as, whether located in magical practices and animistic thinking or in neurotic symptoms, it is coextensive with the boundary-less character of primary narcissism.

Sophie de Mijolla-Mellor

See also: Animistic thought; Fascination; Fort-Da; Infantile omnipotence; Magical thinking; Mythology and Psychoanalysis; Primitive horde; Real trauma; Taboo; "Uncanny, The"; Thought; Wish, hallucinatory satisfaction of a.

Bibliography

Ferenczi, Sándor. (1916). Stages in the development of the sense of reality. In Sex in psycho-analysis. Boston: Richard C. Badger.

Freud, Sigmund. (1912-13a). Totem and taboo. SE, 13: 1-161.

——. (1914c). On narcissism: An introduction. SE, 14: 67-102.

Klein, Melanie. (1923). The development of a child. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 4, 419-474.

Winnicott, Donald W. (1970). The mother-infant experience of mutuality. In E. Anthony, T. Benedek (Eds.). Parenthood: Its psychology and psychopathology. Boston: Little, Brown.