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In “Aspects of Psychoanalytic Theory: Drives, Defense, and the Pleasure-Unpleasure Principle” Brenner (2008), sets infantile sexuality within the context of his revised Freudian drive theory and postulates a central role of the ‘pleasure -unpleasure principle’: “… the mind is motivated by a need, desire, or tendency to achieve pleasure and to avoid unpleasure (= pleasure-unpleasure principle). What is of overriding importance is whether a wish is pleasurable or unpleasurable. In fact, as observation has shown, there are wishes that are both. At a certain age rather early in childhood and from then on, both normal and pathological mental functioning are largely motivated by both needs acting together. According to modern conflict theory (Brenner 2006), the wishes involved cover the whole range of infantile sexuality; the calamities involved include the whole range of unpleasurable affects, whatever they may be in each individual case; and the defenses include whatever the mind is capable of that can serve the purpose of reducing the unpleasurable affects” (Brenner 2008, p.716). He continues: “Aggressive wishes are just as sexual as libidinal ones…No patient’s conflicts are chiefly aggressive or chiefly libidinal. Every patient’s conflicts are, inextricably, both… ” (ibid, pp. 716-717). IV. C. ALLAN COMPTON: REASSESSMENT OF DRIVE CONCEPT CONSTRUCTION AND OF THE CLASSIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF INSTINCTUAL DRIVES Compton (1981a,b,c; 1983) reviewed the evolution of Freud’s theory of ‘instinctual drives’, in light of the subsequent developments up until 1980’s, in relation to various psychoanalytic models of mind. He addressed what he considers ‘the basic issues’ surrounding the construction of drive concept : “the relationship of observational data and theoretical constructs in psychology; whether our construct of drives is or should be or can be purely psychological; the problem of conceptualizing the ontogenetic origin of mind; the issues of the “force-meaning conjunction” and the problem of psychic energy in psychoanalytic constructs; and the relation of our concept of instinctual drives to the concept of instincts in general. It seems that progress with these fundamental issues might be made by utilizing models that are more homologous with present knowledge in related fields’ (Compton 1983, p. 396). He also addresses ongoing controversies of the classification of drives, namely aggression versus libido and sexual drive . He points out that, despite widespread acceptance of the idea of aggression as simply parallel to sexuality in all respects, there are major discrepancies. Noting the endurance as well necessary modifications and alterations of the psychoanalytic theory of drive development, he writes: “…careful observational work has led to alterations of our views of the age of onset of genital awareness, of female sexual development and function, and of the latency period“ (Compton 1983, pp. 396-397).
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