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In “On Narcissism: An Introduction” (Freud 1914), a formal exposition of the Libido theory, a new categorization of the drives is offered: while proposing opposition between ego- libido/narcissistic libido (libido directed toward ego or self) and object-libido (libido invested in objects), ego instincts are conceived of as libidinal. While the distinction between sexual and Ego drives does not disappear, the introduction of the concept of narcissism makes libido a common element of both. However, at this point of Freud’s theorizing, Ego became more complex: apart from the libidinal component of the Ego drives, there was a non-libidinal component which Freud calls “interest”, in line with the self-preservation drives. The paper is considered an important precursor of later Freud’s and Post-Freudian Structural theory (Second Topography) and well as Object Relation theory. Freud’s most comprehensive formulation of his drive concept appeared in “Instinct and their Vicissitudes” (Freud 1915a). Here, the drive/instinct is comprehensively defined as “a concept on the frontier of the mental and the somatic, as the psychical representative of the stimuli originating from within the organism and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in consequence of its connection with the body…” (ibid, pp. 121-122). The mental apparatus functions to attain pleasure through the reduction of the (endogenous) drive stimulus in accordance with the pleasure principle. Drives are represented in the mind by the idea (a wish) and a ‘quota of affect’, a registration of the intensity of pleasure or unpleasure. here, Freud also described the possible transformations of drives. These may include 1. Reversal of aim, with a change from active to passive (from sadism to masochism, from scopophilia to exhibitionism), or reversal of content (from love to hate); 2. Turning around upon the self , with a replacement of a drive’s original external object (seen in shift from sadism to masochism or in superego functioning); 3. Repression ; 4. Sublimation (where sexual aim is inhibited and shifted towards socially valued goals, as in intellectual or artistic activity. Continuing and developing further the themes from 1905, the drive is pictured through its four dimensions; its source is the body from which the drive movement always seems to begin; it implies pressure in the direction of an object in which the drive movement seeks its satisfaction by abreaction of tension, which is the aim pursued. (Freud, 1915a) The apparent clarity of this 4-dinensional configuration contains a number of complexities, outlined below: Source : The source is the part of the body from which the drive pressure seems to emerge, and so different drives have been described: oral, anal, phallic, but also “scopic” (when the pleasure originates in the eyes, through visual observation or viewing). Identifying those erotogenic zones (mouth, sphincters, genitals etc.) should not be reduced solely to concrete bodily topography since Freud gradually moved towards the idea that oral, anal, phallic and genital functioning designated less the drives themselves (nor their concrete bodily sources) than successive organizational modes of drive activity (1926).
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