Libido
Libido
can never be apprehended except in a definite form; that is to say,
it is
identical with fantasy-images. And we can only release it
from the grip of the unconscious by bringing up the corresponding
fantasy-images. That is why, …, we give the unconscious a
chance to bring its fantasies to the surface. This is how the
foregoing fragment was produced. It is a single episode from
a long and very intricate series of fantasy-images, corresponding to the quota
of
energy that was lost to the
conscious mind and its contents.
The patient’s conscious world has become cold, empty, and grey; but his
unconscious is activated, powerful and rich. It is
characteristic of the nature of the unconscious
psyche that it is sufficient
unto itself and knows no human considerations. Once a thing
has fallen into the unconscious it is retained there, regardless of whether the
conscious mind suffers or not. The latter can hunger and
freeze, while everything in the unconscious becomes verdant and blossoms.
Freud introduced his concept of libido in his
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and there, as we have said, he
defined it sexually. The libido appears subject to displacement,
and in the form of "libidinal affluxes" can communicate itself to various other
functions and regions of the body which in themselves have nothing to do with
sex. This fact led Freud to compare the libido with a stream, which is
divisible, can be dammed up, overflows into collaterals, and so on. Thus,
despite this definition of libido as sexuality, Freud does not explain
"everything" in terms of sex, as is commonly supposed, but recognizes the
existence of special instinctual forces whose nature is not clearly known, but
to which he was bound to ascribe the faculty of taking up these "libidinal
affluxes." At the back of all this lies the hypothetical idea of a "bundle
of instincts," in which the sexual instinct figures as a partial instinct.
Its encroachement into the sphere of other instincts is a fact of experience.
The resultant Freudian theory, which held that the instinctual forces of a
neurotic system correspond to the libidinal affluxes taken up by other,
non-sexual, instinctual functions, has become the keystone of the
psychoanalytical theory of neurosis and the dogma of the Viennese school.
Later, however, Freud was forced to ponder whether libido might not in the end
coincide with interest in general. (Here I would remark that it
was a case of paranoid schizophrenia that gave rise to these considerations.)
Earlier,
in The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, I made use of the term "psychic
energy," because what is lacking in this disease is evidently more than erotic
interest as such. If one tried to explain the loss of relationship, the
schizophrenic dissociation between man and world, purely by the recession of
eroticism, the inevitable result would be to inflate the idea of sexuality in a
typically Freudian manner. One would then be forced to say that every
relationship to the world was in essence a sexual relationship, and the idea of
sexuality would become so nebulous that the very word "sexuality" would be
deprived of all meaning. The fashionable term "psychosexuality" is a clear
symptom of this conceptual
inflation. But in
schizophrenia far more is
lacking to reality than could ever be laid at the door of sexuality in the
strict sense of the word. The "fonction du réel" is absent to such
a degree as to include the loss of certain instinctual forces which cannot
possibly be supposed to have a sexual character, for no one in his senses would
maintain that reality is nothing but a function of sex! And even if it
were, the introversion of libido in the neuroses would necessarily be followed
by a loss of reality comparable with that which occurs in schizophrenia.
But that is far from being the case. As Freud himself has pointed out,
introversion and regression of sexual libido leads, at the worse, to
neurosis,
but not to schizophrenia.
The attitude of reserve which I adopted towards the sexual theory in the preface
to The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, despite the fact that I
recognized the psychological mechanisms pointed out by Freud, was dictated by
the general position of the libido theory at that time. The theory as it
then stood did not permit me to explain functional disturbances which affect the
sphere of other instincts just as much as that of sex, solely in the light of a
one-sided sexual theory. An interpretation in terms of energy seemed to me
better suited to the facts than the doctrine set forth in Freud s Essays on
the Theory of Sexuality. It allowed me to identify ``psychic energy``
with `libido.` The latter term denotes a desire or impulse which is unchecked by
any kind of authority, moral or otherwise. Libido is appetite in its
natural state. From the genetic point of view it is bodily needs like
hunger, thirst, sleep, and sex, and emotional states or affects, which
constitute the essence of libido. All these factors have their
differentiations and subtle ramifications in the highly complicated human
psyche. There can be no doubt that even the highest
differentiations were
developed from simpler forms. Thus, many complex functions, which today
must be denied all trace of sexuality, were originally derived from the
reproductive instinct. As we know, an important change occurred in the
principles of propagation during the ascent through the animal kingdom: the
vast numbers of gametes which chance fertilization made necessary were
progressively reduced in favour of assured fertilization and effective
protection of the young. The decreased production of ova and spermatozoa
set free considerable quantities of energy which soon sought and found new
outlets. Thus we find the first stirrings of the artistic impulse in
animals, but subservient to the reproductive instinct and limited to the
breeding season. The original sexual character of these biological
phenomenon gradually disappears as they become organically fixed and achieve
functional independence. Althouh there can be no doubt that music
originally belonged to the reproductive sphere, it would be an unjustified and
fantastic generalization to put music in the same category as sex. Such a
view would be tantamount to treating of Cologne Cathedral as a text-book of
mineralogy, on the ground that it consisted very largely of stones. SoT
136
Consequently
to speak of libido as the urge to propagation is to remain within the confines
of a view which distinguishes libido from hunger in the same way that the
instinct for the preservation of the species is distinguished from the instinct
for self-preservation. In nature, of soucrse, this artificial distinction
does not exist. There we see only a continuous life-urge, a will to live
which seeks to ensure the continuance of the whole species through the
preservation of the individual. SoT 136
Having
once made the bold conjecture that the libido which was originally employed in
the production of ova and spermatozoa is now firmly organized in the function of
nest-building, for instance, and can no longer be ebployed otherwise, we are
compelled to regard every striving and every desire, including hunger and
instinct however understood, as equally a phenomenon of energy. SoT 137
Libido can never be apprehended except in a definite form; that is to say, it is identical with fantasy-images. And we can only release it from the grip of the unconscious by bringing up the corresponding fantasy-images. That is why, …, we give the unconscious a chance to bring its fantasies to the surface. This is how the foregoing fragment was produced. It is a single episode from a long and very intricate series of fantasy-images, corresponding to the quota of energy that was lost to the conscious mind and its contents. The patient’s conscious world has become cold, empty, and grey; but his unconscious is activated, powerful and rich. It is characteristic of the nature of the unconscious psyche that it is sufficient unto itself and knows no human considerations. Once a thing has fallen into the unconscious it is retained there, regardless of whether the conscious mind suffers or not. The latter can hunger and freeze, while everything in the unconscious becomes verdant and blossoms. (JoAI)