[2] John Bowlby considered the first of the "four phases of mourning" to be a 'Phase of numbness that...may be interrupted by outbursts of extremely intense distress and/or anger'.
[11] A similar postponement of guilt may be seen in everyday life, as when 'a woman may decide that her Superego will permit her to cheat on her spouse...[but] may begin to feel guilty many years afterwards.
[12] In pathological form something similar would seem to occur 'during a melancholic attack', or so Freud surmised: the 'super-ego becomes over-severe, abuses the poor ego...reproaches it for actions in the remotest past which had been taken lightly at the time – as though it had spent the whole interval in collecting accusations and had only been waiting for its current access of strength in order to bring them up'.
[14] Freud saw the development of the reality principle as a process which 'demands and carries into effect the postponement of satisfaction...and the temporary toleration of unpleasure as a step on the long indirect road to pleasure'.
[17] In this sense, 'delaying, as opposed to avoidance, is a fine mechanism, another form of the method of learning I call step-by-step'.