Science Features, Freudian Economics, and Psychoanalytic Drive Theory
Common Features of Science
Scientific disciplines share these fundamental characteristics:
- They deal with phenomena occurring in the physical world.
- They begin with some common assumptions:
- Determinism: It is assumed that the world—particularly, the object of study of each discipline—is subject to order and that natural phenomena are interrelated in a certain and stable way.
- Finite Limits: Not everything is connected to everything. It is assumed that there is a limited number of factors or variables, enabling relevant application of the scientific method.
- They have general objectives:
- Descriptive Objective: This is a preliminary step to the investigation and involves observing the phenomenon to be studied and giving an appropriate description of it.
- Explanatory Objective: The aim is to establish functional relationships that exist between the phenomena and to formulate laws. A scientific law is a proposition that realizes the existence of a functional relationship between observational facts.
- They use the same method to achieve the proposed objectives.
Economic Theory in Freud’s Work
Freud postulated the existence of an energy that increases, decreases, moves, or is released. These energy changes occur in specific locations and are distributed throughout the human psyche, activating its various processes. An example of this energy is observed in Freud’s work, where abrupt changes in the intensity of impulses and experiences in neurotics are described. Freud spoke of innate instincts, referring to those primary forces that drive human behavior. In psychoanalytic practice, the term used to refer to those impulses is “drive.”
Theory of Drives in Psychoanalysis
- The Source: A bodily organ or somatic area creates a drive through an active process. Psychology does not study the process itself, only its psychological manifestation. In the process of organizing drives, various sources give rise to different partial drives that will be integrated into one.
- Impulse Imperative: This is the energy factor and driving force of variable intensity that pushes the body toward a goal in a peremptory fashion, meaning there is no possibility that the subject can prevent it, as would be expected if it were an external stimulus. The peremptory nature is the essence of the drive.
- The End: Satisfaction, in the sense of achieving the removal of excitation. Keep in mind that the order is not fixed in the drives.
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The Object: That by which the drive manages to achieve satisfaction. The object is not predetermined. Freud divided the instinctual drives of human beings into two categories:
- Instincts of Self-Preservation: These are related to the individual’s self-preservation. The prototype would be starvation, not so much as a physical necessity, but as a psychic necessity.
- Sexual Drive: Speaking of sex should not be in a genital sense. What is at stake is a set of partial drives that originate from different somatic sources—erogenous zones—and seek satisfaction.
After a review in 1920, Freud introduced a second theory of drives, without negating the first but placing it in a new context. There are now two major drives:
- Life Instincts: These tend to form and maintain increasingly richer unifications. They are governed by the principle of linkage.
- Death Instincts: Opposite to those of life, these tend to disengage and lead the living back to its inorganic state, reducing any tension to zero. It is governed by the principle of nirvana.