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It is possible to distinguish the different periods (‘steps’), corresponding to three different drive classifications in which Freud developed his drive theory,
III. Aa. Evolution of the First Drive theory
III. Aaa. First phase/ period/ ‘step’: From 1905 - 1914 As soon as the concept of libido was introduced, in 1894, as psychical sexual excitation, a rough sketch of the sexual drive became necessary so that the ‘‘concept of the mechanism of anxiety neurosis can be made clearer’’ (Freud, 1895b [1894], p. 108). At first, the sexual drive belonged to the conceptual level. It signified a relatively continuous change of phase and location that transformed the energy of the organic sexual processes into psychical sexual energy, or libido. The sexual drive refers to this transition and its dynamic; it is the conceptual referent of the libido. Freud first formally introduced the concept of drive within the description of the sexual drives, in “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality ” (Freud 1905a), after previously having referred to concepts similar to drives, mostly in the context of energy conceptualizations, such as endogenous excitation, or wishful impulses (1892, 1895, 1900). In this text, which inaugurated psychoanalytic theory of unconscious sexuality , subverted the mind-body dualism and articulated the radical notions of complemental series and a continuity between illness and health, Freud formulated the early version of the proposition of the first drive theory, which was that the two fundamental motivating forces were ‘sexual drive’ and ‘ego-preservative drive’, also called ‘self-preservative drive’. The former sought erotic pleasure and served, the survival of the species, and the latter sought safety and growth and served the survival of the individual. He writes: “By an instinct [drive]is provisionally to be understood the psychical representative of an endosomatic, continuously flowing source of stimulation, as contrasted with a ‘stimulus’ which is set up single excitations coming from without . The concept of instinct [drive] is thus one of those lying on the frontier between the mental and the physical . The simplest and likeliest assumption as to the nature of instincts would seem to be that in itself an instinct is without quality, and, so far as mental life is concerned, is only to be regarded as a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work. What distinguishes the instincts from one another and endows them with specific qualities is· their relation to their somatic sources and to their aims. The source of an instinct is a process of excitation occurring in an organ and the immediate aim of the instinct lies in the removal of this organic stimulus.” (p. 168, emphases added). Freud characterized the drives mainly in terms of their somatic source within the body, their aim , which is to achieve satisfaction through the reduction or elimination of tension, and their object (imagined or actual person or body part), which is the most variable factor, through which a drive achieves satisfaction. Here, Freud also more explicitly defined his concept of
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