BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE (Unabridged): Human's Struggle between Eros & Thanatos - Libido & Compulsion
()
About this ebook
Beyond the Pleasure Principle is a book by Sigmund Freud that marks a major turning point in his theoretical approach. Previously, Freud attributed most human behavior to the sexual instinct (Eros or libido). With this book, Freud went "beyond" the simple pleasure principle, developing his theory of drives with the addition of the death drive (often referred to as Thanatos). The book describes humans as struggling between two opposing drives: Eros, which produces creativity, harmony, sexual connection, reproduction, and self-preservation; and Thanatos, which brings destruction, repetition, aggression, compulsion, and self-destruction. With Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud also introduced the question of violence and destructiveness in humans. These themes play an important role in some later writings, when Freud suggested that civilization's major function is to repress the death instinct.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the father of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious.
Read more from Sigmund Freud
33 Masterpieces of Philosophy and Science to Read Before You Die (Illustrated): Utopia, The Meditations, The Art of War, The Kama Sutra, Candide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Studies in Hysteria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis: Illustrated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dictionary of Dreams: Every Meaning Interpreted Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Problem of Anxiety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Outline of Psychoanalysis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Future of an Illusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Civilization and Its Discontents (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civilization and Its Discontents Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Three Case Histories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE (Unabridged)
Related ebooks
Impious Fidelity: Anna Freud, Psychoanalysis, Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExistential Man: The Challenge of Psychotherapy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals: Study in Evolutionary Theory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Friend in Me Emotion Less Relationship: A Voyage into the Human Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSexual Orientation and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Sexual Science and Clinical Practice Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Love's Vision Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPreparing for the New York State Case Narrative Examination for the License in Psychoanalysis: An Unofficial Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPsychobiology Behavior From a Biological Perspective Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHopewell Valley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpoken Medicine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsModern Anxiety, Modern Woman Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heaven on Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelf-Deception Unmasked Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freud Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWoman Without a Country: Finding Sacred Space Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTravel Guide Towards Your Inner World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNietzsche Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freud's Jaw and Other Lost Objects: Fractured Subjectivity in the Face of Cancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBut Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People's Lives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSex vs. Survival: The Life and Ideas of Sabina Spielrein Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeaving Crazy Town: My True Journey Through Severe Mental Illness into Complete Mental Health. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife After Marriage Ends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassages Beyond the Gate: A Jungian Approach to Understanding American Psychology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeauty Unbound: Breaking Free and Living Unapologetically Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImpossible Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sick Love (We never fall in love by chance) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Interpretation of Dreams Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lıfe-changıng Impact of Vıktor Frankl's Logotherapy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Jen Waite's A Beautiful, Terrible Thing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Psychology For You
How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of Letting Go: Stop Overthinking, Stop Negative Spirals, and Find Emotional Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Self-Care for People with ADHD: 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress, and Prioritize You! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Brain's Not Broken: Strategies for Navigating Your Emotions and Life with ADHD Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Winning the War in Your Mind Workbook: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: The Narcissism Series, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong: And Other Things You Need to Know to Take Back Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE (Unabridged)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE (Unabridged) - Sigmund Freud
EDITORIAL PREFACE
BY ERNEST JONES
Table of Contents
I HAVE revised this translation, so carefully made by Miss Hubback, several times, but I feel that it calls for special indulgence on the part of the reader. On account, doubtless, of the extreme complexity and remarkable novelty of the ideas which Professor Freud here expounds, comprising as they do his thoughts on the ultimate problems of life, the style is one of exceptional difficulty. As it is more important to render his ideas precisely than to clothe them in another garb, we decided to adhere faithfully to the original even at the expense of some uncouthness as regards the English.
The word Unlust, as in the phrase pleasure-pain principle, has been translated as ‘pain’; pain without inverted commas signifies Schmerz in the original. The word Besetzung(literally: state of being occupied), as in the expressions Besetzungsenergie andEnergiebesetzung has been rendered by the words ‘investment’ or ‘charge’, the latter being taken from the analogy of electricity. These and other technical terms will be discussed in a Glossary which it is intended to publish as a supplement to theInternational Journal of Psycho-Analysis.
ERNEST JONES.
I
Table of Contents
IN the psycho-analytical theory of the mind we take it for granted that the course of mental processes is automatically regulated by ‘the pleasure-principle’: that is to say, we believe that any given process originates in an unpleasant state of tension and thereupon determines for itself such a path that its ultimate issue coincides with a relaxation of this tension, i. e. with avoidance of ‘pain’ or with production of pleasure. When we consider the psychic processes under observation in reference to such a sequence we are introducing into our work the economic point of view. In our opinion a presentation which seeks to estimate, not only the topographical and dynamic, but also the economic element is the most complete that we can at present imagine, and deserves to be distinguished by the term meta-psychological.
We are not interested in examining how far in our assertion of the pleasure-principle we have approached to or adopted any given philosophical system historically established. Our approach to such speculative hypotheses is by way of our endeavour to describe and account for the facts falling within our daily sphere of observation. Priority and originality are not among the aims which psycho-analysis sets itself, and the impressions on which the statement of this principle is founded are of so unmistakable a kind that it is scarcely possible to overlook them. On the other hand, we should willingly acknowledge our indebtedness to any philosophical or psychological theory that could tell us the meaning of these feelings of pleasure and ‘pain’ which affect us so powerfully. Unfortunately no theory of any value is forthcoming. It is the obscurest and least penetrable region of psychic life and, while it is impossible for us to avoid touching on it, the most elastic hypothesis will be, to my mind, the best. We have decided to consider pleasure and ‘pain’ in relation to the quantity of excitation present in the psychic life—and not confined in any way—along such lines that ‘pain’ corresponds with an increase and pleasure with a decrease in this quantity. We do not thereby commit ourselves to a simple relationship between the strength of the feelings and the changes corresponding with them, least of all, judging from psycho-physiological experiences, to any view of a direct proportion existing between them; probably the amount of diminution or increase in a given time is the decisive factor for feeling. Possibly there is room here for experimental work, but it is inadvisable for us analysts to go further into these problems until we can be guided by quite definite observations.
We cannot however profess the like indifference when we find that an investigator of such penetration as G. Th. Fechner has advocated a conception of pleasure and ‘pain’ which in essentials coincides with that forced upon us by psycho-analytic work. Fechner’s pronouncement is to be found in his short work ‘Einige Ideen zur Schöpfungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Organismen’, 1873 (Section XI, Note p. 94) and reads as follows: ‘In so far as conscious impulses always bear a relation to pleasure or pain
, pleasure or pain
may be thought of in psycho-physical relationship to conditions of stability and instability, and upon this may be based the hypothesis I intend to develop elsewhere, viz.: that every psycho-physical movement rising above the threshold of consciousness is charged with pleasure in proportion as it approximates—beyond a certain limit—to complete equilibrium, and with pain
in proportion as it departs from it beyond a certain limit; while between the two limits which may be described as the qualitative thresholds of pain
or pleasure, there is a certain area of aesthetic indifference.’
The facts that have led us to believe in the supremacy of the pleasure-principle in psychic life also find expression in the hypothesis that there is an attempt on the part of the psychic apparatus to keep the quantity of excitation present as low as possible, or at least constant. This is the same supposition only put into another form, for, if the psychic apparatus operates in the direction of keeping down the quantity of excitation, all that tends to increase it must be felt to be contrary to function, that is to say painful. The pleasure-principle is deduced from the principle of constancy; in reality the principle of constancy was inferred from the facts that necessitated our assumption of the pleasure-principle. On more detailed discussion we shall find further that this tendency on the part of the psychic apparatus postulated by us may be classified as a special case of Fechner’s principle of the tendency towards stability to which he has related the pleasure-pain feelings.
In that event, however, it must be affirmed that it is not strictly correct to speak of a supremacy of the pleasure-principle over the course of psychic processes. If such existed, then the vast majority of our psychic processes would necessarily be accompanied by pleasure or would conduce to it, while the most ordinary experience emphatically contradicts any such conclusion. One can only say that a strong tendency towards the pleasure-principle exists in the psyche, to which, however, certain other forces or conditions are opposed, so that the ultimate issue cannot always be in