In the upper right corner, Freud has scrawled the phrase Normalschema or “normal scheme,” referring to the development of melancholia in someone suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders. This occurs in a few different ways.

The upper diagram represents anxiety neurosis as deviations from the normal pathways of sexual energy and sensation.

Here, sexual energy diverts back from the psyche into the body, rather than being projected outwards onto an external object or person.

Freud believed that the effect of this thwarted movement was a subdued sexual energy—here represented as a branching line leading to Angst (anxiety) and melancholia.

In the bottom diagram, Freud describes a situation where excessive masturbation makes the genitals (marked E for “end organ”) less sensitive to sexual stimulation.

While the strength of sexual stimuli (marked as s.S.) does not change, the level of the psychic sexual stimuli (ps. G.) diminishes.