Beyond the pleasure principle

Beyond the Pleasure Principle is a treatise by Sigmund Freud that was written in 1919 and 1920 and published in 1920. Based on an analysis of the compulsion to repeat , Freud outlines a conception of repression and instinct . The treatise is considered to be a turning point in Freud's theoretical development.

The thesis contains three theoretical innovations:

The relationship between the psychological system that exercises the repression and what is repressed is redefined. Freud now no longer applies as the repressing authority, as in his earlier works, to consciousness, but to an ego that is essentially unconscious.
The instincts are by no means ruled solely by the pleasure principle , that is, the striving to gain pleasure and to avoid pain, as he previously assumed. Rather, what is primary for an instinct is the urge to restore an earlier state. This urge is effective independently of the pleasure principle, so it accepts displeasure, for example in the form of fear, and can override the pleasure principle.
There are two groups of instincts, the life instincts and the death instincts . The life instincts appeared, under another name, in Freud's earlier writings; its energy is libido , which comes in two forms, narcissism and object love. The concept of the death instinct is introduced in this document; Freud uses it to describe the tendency towards self-destruction and the inclination to aggression and destruction derived from it. The life instincts aim at the production of ever larger units, the death instincts at returning the organism to an inorganic state.

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Overview

In earlier writings Freud had taken the view that mental processes were regulated by the pleasure principle and the reality principle . The pleasure principle consists in striving for pleasure and in avoiding discomfort, whereby the sensation of pleasure, according to Freud, consists in a reduction in tension based on the discharge of energy. The displeasure is due to an increase in tension, in an increase in energy. Under the influence of the self-preservation instincts of the ego , the pleasure principle is replaced by the reality principle. Like the pleasure principle, this aims to satisfy pleasure, but ensures that unpleasant detours are accepted - the reality principle is a modification of the pleasure principle. (Part One)

But now there is the compulsion to repeat : certain experiences of displeasure are persistently repeated. These include the accident dreams of people suffering from traumatic neurosis , as well as children's games in which separation experiences are re- enacted . Do they contradict the pleasure principle? At least the children's repetitive games can certainly be interpreted in the context of the pleasure principle: as the satisfaction of the instinct to take control by subsequently actively coping with a passively experienced experience or as the satisfaction of an impulse to revenge. Most of what the repetition compulsion revives in this case brings displeasure to the ego , but an aversion that does not contradict the pleasure principle: discomfort for the ego and pleasure for the unconscious . (Part II)

In psychoanalytic therapy, however, there are forms of repetition compulsion that are by no means subject to the pleasure principle. Essential painful childhood memories, such as the experience of being rejected by the parents, are not remembered, but repeated, in the relationship with the doctor, in the transference . A similar phenomenon can be found in non-neurotic persons who are under “fate compulsion”, i. H. who are forced to re-establish relationships that end painfully in the same way, such as being betrayed by a friend. In therapy, the patient's repetition is aimed at discontinuing treatment. It is therefore in the service of the ego's resistance to the exposure of the repressed . The motives for this resistance are unconscious. So the self is unconscious at its core. (Part III)

The compulsion to repeat, which is not subject to the pleasure principle, has two sources. It is based on excitations that come from outside and those that come from within, above all from the instincts. In order to elucidate the repetition compulsion that arises from the action of external stimuli, Freud uses a model of the “psychic apparatus”, the mode of operation of which he first explains. The excitations present in the apparatus arise from energies that exist in two forms, as "free" and as "bound" energies:

The “primary process” prevails in the unconscious, that is, the excitations present here result from free energy, from a form of energy that urges immediate dissipation, which is felt as a striving for tension reduction.
In the preconscious (those ideas that are currently not conscious, but which can be made conscious at any time) and in the consciousness, the “secondary process” prevails; the excitation processes are based on another type of energy, namely bound (or resting) energy. This does not urge to flow off immediately, rather it can be stored and its removal - which occurs primarily through the motor skills - can take place in a controlled manner.

To protect against excessive amounts of excitation coming from outside, the apparatus is used to protect against irritation , especially in the form of fearfulness . A traumatic inundation of the apparatus by an excessive amount of stimulus occurs when the individual is unprepared and frightened, i.e. H. if the protection against irritation fails and fear does not develop. The psychic apparatus is then faced with the task of coping with the amount of excitation that has penetrated: to bind it, to convert it into bound energy. For this purpose the pleasure principle is temporarily suspended; Displeasure, for example in the form of fear, is accepted. This explains the repetition of accident dreams. In these dreams, an attempt is made to cope with the amount of stimuli that entered through the accident, namely by subsequently combining the repetition with the then lack of fearfulness. (Part IV)

The compulsion to repeat, however, is also based on such excitations which originate from within the psychic apparatus, from the instincts. In order to explain the internally induced repetition compulsion, Freud drafts a new version of his drive theory. The two main theses are: All instincts strive for repetition. And: There are exactly two large groups of instincts: life instincts and death instincts.

Repetitive character of instincts - An instinct is an urge inherent in the living organism to restore an earlier state, to repeat an original experience of satisfaction. This goal can never be achieved because of repression, but it cannot be given up either. So drives are conservative, regressive. There is no drive to higher development; all higher development is based on external influence.

“The repressed instinct never gives up striving for its full satisfaction, which would consist in the repetition of a primary satisfaction experience; All substitutes , reactions, and sublimations are inadequate to neutralize its lasting tension, and the difference between the pleasure found and the desire for satisfaction gives rise to the driving moment, which does not allow us to persist in any of the situations created, but rather, according to the poet, 'untamed' always pushes forward '(Mephisto in Faust , I, study room). "

- Part V, p. 251

Two drive groups - Freud distinguishes between two types of drives, life drives (or "Eros", Greek for: love ) and death drives. He assumes that these two types of instinct are at work in every living organism, starting with the unicellular organism. The death instincts strive to return the living being to its inorganic state. “The goal of all life is death.” (P. 248) This group of instincts includes the striving for self-destruction and the inclination to aggression and destruction derived from it. The life instincts aim to maintain life for a longer period of time and to combine it into larger and larger units. Narcissism and the object-related sexual instincts that result from it belong to them .

There is a contradiction between life instincts and death instincts which, in addition to the disturbing forces coming from outside, determine the development of living beings. (Part V)

Freud sees no possibility of scientifically substantiating his assumptions about the two groups of instincts. They seem to find confirmation in August Weismann's distinction between the mortal part of the body, the soma , and the germ cells , which are immortal when they fuse. However, Weismann considers death to be a late invention of evolution ; he does not, like Freud, see it as a force effective from the beginning in all living things. Can Ewald Hering's theory serve as confirmation that the processes in living matter go in two directions, an uplifting direction - assimilation - and a dismantling direction - dissimilation? Freud leaves the question open. He finds support for his speculation only in the philosophers: for the death instincts in Schopenhauer and for the life instincts, Eros, in Plato . The assertion of the regressive character of the instincts is, however, also based, he explains, on observable material, namely on the facts of the compulsion to repeat. (Part VI)

Freud concludes the treatise with comments on the relationship between drives, the pleasure principle and the relationship between free and bound energy:

The pleasure principle serves both the death instincts and the life instincts. It aims to keep the level of arousal constant (principle of constancy ) or perhaps even to bring it to zero ( principle of nirvana ); in this way it supports the death instincts, the return to an inorganic state. At the same time, however, it works in the opposite direction: it watches over instinctual stimuli that complicate the life's task, and thus it serves the vital instincts.
The processes occurring in the unconscious - caused by the free excitation processes of the primary process - evoke far more intense sensations of pleasure / displeasure than the thought and perception processes occurring in the ego, which are based on the bound excitation processes of the secondary process.
At the beginning of the individual's soul life there was only the primary process. The pleasure principle prevailed in him, but this was by no means unrestricted, "you have to put up with frequent breakthroughs" (p. 271), interruptions due to the repetitive character of the drives. In later times, with the development of the ego, the rule of the pleasure principle is much more secure.

Freud dismisses the reader with the explanation that one must remain prepared to leave a path again if one has gained the impression that it does not lead to anything good. (Part VII)

Drive terminology

The dualistic drive concept presented in Beyond the Pleasure Principle is retained by Freud until the end of his life. The terminology, however, varies:

In Beyond the Pleasure Principle of 1920, the two groups of instincts are called "life instincts" (or "eros") and "death instincts".
In Das Ich und das Es of 1923 Freud speaks of "sexual instincts" (or "eros") in contrast to the "death instincts"; the term “life instinct” is not used in this work. The term “destructive instinct” is used here to denote the death instinct directed against the outside world under the influence of the sexual instincts.
In The Uneasiness in Culture of 1930, the two groups of instincts are referred to as "Eros" (or "life instinct") and "death instinct". "Destructive instinct" is used here as a synonym for the death instinct; “Aggression instinct” is the name given to a descendant of the death instinct, namely the outwardly directed death instinct.
In the New Series of Lectures Introducing Psychoanalysis from 1933, he contrasts the “sexual instincts” (or the “eros” or the “erotic instincts”) with the “aggressional instincts” (or the “death instincts”); here, too, the expression “life instinct” is not used.
In the outline of the psychoanalysis of 1939/40 he speaks of "Eros" (or "love instinct") in contrast to the "destructive instinct".

He always uses the singular and the plural side by side, for example he speaks not only of the "death instincts", but also of the "death instincts". Even with the singular expression, an instinct group or instinct type is always meant.

Metapsychology

At various points in the treatise Freud develops a model of how the psychic works, the "psychic apparatus," as he puts it. Freud calls this model his metapsychology . It combines three aspects:

The psychic apparatus is understood as a structure that consists of several systems (or instances ), the consciousness ("System Bw "), the preconscious ("System Vbw ") and the unconscious ("System Ubw "). The relationships between these systems are represented by a spatial model. Freud calls this the “ topical ”, ie spatial, point of view.
There are forces in the system, the instincts, between which there are conflicting relationships. This is the dynamic point of view, the description that relates to the forces.
The excitation processes in the apparatus are based on an energy that can be quantified and which can be increased and decreased. Freud calls this point of view "economic".

In presenting the model, he ties in with his draft of a psychology from 1895 and the chapter on the psychology of dream processes from his dream interpretation from 1900. Freud expressly describes the model as speculation.

Freud imagines that the psychic apparatus is determined by the processes of excitation that take place in it. Overall, the apparatus tends to keep the amount of excitation contained in it as low as possible, or at least to keep it constant, and it is precisely in this tendency that the pleasure principle exists. The tendency towards a constant amount of excitation is referred to by Freud as the principle of constancy . Using an expression by the English psychoanalyst Barbara Low, he describes the effort to reduce the amount of arousal to zero as the nirvana principle . For the principle of constancy, Freud refers to Fechner's principle of the tendency to stability. The nirvana principle corresponds to the tendency of the death instinct to restore an inorganic state.

The excitations exist in the apparatus in two different forms of energy, as “free” and as “bound” energy. The difference relates to the type of energy dissipation. The free energy has a flowing character; it urges immediate drainage. The resting or bound energy, on the other hand, can be stored, the striving for dissipation is low here.

Changes in free energy are perceived by the ego as pleasure or discomfort. When the free energy decreases, i.e. when it can flow off in the way that corresponds to the constancy or nirvana principle, the ego perceives this as pleasure. When the quantity of free energy increases, when its natural outflow tendency is inhibited, this is experienced as non-functional and this creates a feeling of discomfort in the ego.

Only a small part of the pain is based on the reality principle , i.e. on the acceptance of pain as a detour to pleasure. A more intense source of displeasure is the division of the psychic apparatus into the repressing ego on the one hand and the repressed instincts on the other. If the repressed instincts manage to achieve satisfaction in certain detours, this is perceived by the ego as displeasure. In this case, the pleasure principle has been broken through - but by the pleasure principle, namely by the fact that repressed urges have succeeded in gaining pleasure. "All neurotic displeasure is of this kind, it is pleasure that cannot be felt as such" (p. 220). This kind of pain can therefore be interpreted in the context of the pleasure principle.

Overall, Freud imagines the psychic apparatus as a vesicle composed of various systems. On the outside are consciousness and perception - the "System Bw "; below that lies the preconscious (“System Vbw ”), ideas capable of being conscious, but not currently conscious, and even deeper lies the unconscious (“System Ubw ”). Consciousness differs from the other two systems of the apparatus, the preconscious and the unconscious, in that excitations leave no permanent changes in it, no memory traces. (The question of how the "System Bw " introduced earlier by Freud relates to the newly introduced ego, which is essentially unconscious, is not clarified in this work; Freud uses both descriptions side by side.)

The consciousness system is excited by stimuli that flow to it from two sources, from the outside world and from the inside of the apparatus. The outermost surface of the vesicle, still above the Bw system , consists of the "irritation protection". The psychic apparatus can only work with small amounts of excitation, and the protection against stimuli has the task of reducing the quantity of excitations coming from outside. One of the forms of stimulus protection is the willingness to fear. In the event of danger, it ensures that the systems receiving the stimulus are "overstaffed" with bound energy; this more bound energy is able to convert the energies coming from outside into resting energy, to "bind" them.

External excitations that are strong enough to break through the protection against stimuli are described by Freud as "traumatic". Through them the entire mental apparatus is flooded with an excessive amount of excitation. In order to cope with it, the pleasure principle is temporarily suspended and the apparatus concentrates on a task that is more fundamental than gaining pleasure and avoiding discomfort, on “binding” the stimulus that has broken in.

The traumatic neurosis is based on a breach of the stimulus protection; The cause was the lack of fearfulness. The accident dreams try to catch up on the stimulus coping by combining the repetition with the development of fear, the lack of which had led to the traumatic neurosis. Dreams of this kind do not serve to fulfill wishes like all other dreams (according to the hypothesis of the “dream interpretation”); Rather, they obey the compulsion to repeat, which is more original than the pleasure principle.

The main source of the internal excitations are the instincts. The excitations emanating from them belong to the type of freely moving energy which, after immediate removal, is urgent. These excitations are perceived by the consciousness as pleasure and discomfort.

The apparatus has no protection against irritation in the direction of the instinctual impulses coming from within. This deficiency leads to disorders which are to be equated with those of the externally caused traumatic neuroses. The apparatus manages itself by treating strong excitations coming from within as if they came from outside; this makes it possible to use the protection against irritation against them. This type of defense is projection , a mechanism that plays a significant role in the development of pathological processes.

classification

The conception developed in Beyond the Pleasure Principle is further developed by Freud in Das Ich und das Es from 1923. Here he is designing a new topical, i.e. spatial model of the functioning of the psychological apparatus. The model combines the conception of the ego as a partially unconscious repressive entity from beyond the pleasure principle with the older conception of the psychic apparatus as a connection of the three systems of perception-consciousness, preconscious and unconscious.

The system of perception-consciousness is therefore the core of the self; In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, however, it was said that the core of the ego is unconscious.
The preconscious is represented in the ego and the id as part of the ego, with a blurred boundary to the id.
A largely unconscious instance, the superego, differentiates itself from the ego. In a later work, The Humor of 1927, the superego is referred to as the core of the ego.

The hypothesis presented in Beyond the Pleasure Principle about the opposition between life and death instincts is further elaborated in The I and the It ; later it forms a basis for Freud's treatise The Unease in Culture (1930).

According to Fritz Wittels , Freud's first biographer, the writing was partly caused by the death of his daughter Sophie Halberstadt , who died in 1920 and was only 27 years old; a statement with which Freud himself did not agree, as well as to be seen against the background of the cruel experiences of the First World War. However, according to more recent findings, the original version of the script dates back to the spring of 1919, so that the daughter's death cannot have played a role.

expenditure

Sigmund Freud: Beyond the pleasure principle .

Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig, Vienna and Zurich 1920 (first printing), 2nd revised edition 1921, 3rd revised. Edition 1923
In: Ders .: Collected Works. Ordered chronologically. Vol. 13 . Ed. V. Marie Bonaparte with the assistance of Anna Freud. Imago, London 1940, pp. 1-69
In: Ders .: Study edition, Vol. 3: Psychology of the Unconscious . Ed. V. Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, ISBN 3108227033 , pp. 213-272 (with preliminary editorial note, comments on the development of Freud's terminology and evidence of the changes in the various editions)

Web links

Full text in the Gutenberg project
Full text in textlog.de
Michèle Porte: Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In: International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis . Thomson Gale, Detroit 2005.

Individual evidence

↑ Sigmund Freud: Beyond the pleasure principle . In: Ders .: Study edition Vol. 3: Psychology of the Unconscious . Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, p. 251; after this edition is quoted in the following.
↑ See: Elisabeth Roudinesco and Michel Plon: Dictionnaire de la Psychanalyse (1997). Translated from the French by: Christoph Eissing-Christophersen and others: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Springer, Vienna 2004, pp. 495f, ISBN 3-211-83748-5
↑ Ulrike May, The Third Step in Drive Theory. On the genesis of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in: Lucifer-Amor. Journal for the History of Psychoanalysis, Issue 51 (26th year 2013), p. 92 ff.

[1] Sigmund Freud: Beyond the pleasure principle . In: Ders .: Study edition Vol. 3: Psychology of the Unconscious . Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, p. 251; after this edition is quoted in the following.

[2] See: Elisabeth Roudinesco and Michel Plon: Dictionnaire de la Psychanalyse (1997). Translated from the French by: Christoph Eissing-Christophersen and others: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Springer, Vienna 2004, pp. 495f, ISBN 3-211-83748-5

[3] Ulrike May, The Third Step in Drive Theory. On the genesis of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in: Lucifer-Amor. Journal for the History of Psychoanalysis, Issue 51 (26th year 2013), p. 92 ff.