Freud’s Economic Theory of Instinctual Drives
Freud’s Economic Hypothesis of Psychic Energy
The economic perspective in Freudian theory postulates the existence of a psychic energy. This energy can increase, decrease, move, or be released, distributing itself throughout the structures that constitute the human psyche and activating its various processes. An example Freud observed is the sharp changes in the intensity of impulses and experiences related to instinctual drives, particularly in neurotics.
Freud used the term instinct (or later, drive) to refer to these innate, primordial forces accounting for human behavior. In psychoanalytic practice, the term commonly used is drive.
Components of Instinctual Drives
Human drives consist of the following components:
- Source: A bodily organ or process that produces a drive through an activating process. In the organization of drives, various sources give rise to different partial drives that integrate to form a single drive. If these drives do not integrate properly in the adult, they may manifest as perversions, either in fantasy or behavior. For sexual drives, the sources are the erogenous zones.
- Imperative (or Pressure): This is the energetic, driving force of variable intensity pushing the organism towards satisfaction. Its peremptory nature means the subject cannot prevent it, unlike an external stimulus. This peremptory character is the essence of the drive and is primarily psychological, not biological.
- Aim (or End): The aim is satisfaction, achieved by suppressing the state of excitation at the source. It’s important that individuals do not remain fixated on specific drives, especially sexual ones. Mechanisms exist whereby drives can be inhibited before reaching their aim or diverted from it.
- Object: The object is that by means of which the drive achieves its aim (satisfaction). The object is not inherently fixed to the drive, particularly in the case of sexuality, where the range of possible objects is even wider than the range of aims.
Freud’s First Drive Theory Categories
Freud initially divided instinctual drives into two categories:
- Self-Preservation Drives (or Ego Drives): These relate to the individual’s self-preservation. The prototype is hunger, understood not just as a physical necessity but as a psychological need.
- Sexual Drives: Sexuality, in this context, should not be understood solely as genital. It comprises a set of partial drives originating from different somatic sources—erogenous zones—seeking satisfaction. This satisfaction is linked to images and fantasies, meaning the psychic organization can find an object and an aim adapted to physical and socio-cultural reality.
Freud’s Second Drive Theory: Eros and Thanatos
After his revisions around 1920, Freud introduced a second theory of drives, which, without overriding the first, situated it in a new context. Now, two major drives were proposed:
- Eros (Life Drives): These drives tend to form and maintain increasingly complex unifications. They are governed by the principle of linkage, achieving new syntheses and associations between elements and subjects. Drives that serve creativity are integrated under Eros.
- Thanatos (Death Drives): Opposed to life, these drives tend towards disengagement, dissolution, and leading the living towards an inorganic state, reducing all tension to zero. They are governed by the Nirvana principle. These drives tend towards the destruction of the subject; when projected outward, they manifest as aggression or destructiveness.