Partial drive

Partial instinct is a term used in psychoanalysis : “Freud tried to characterize the development process starting from the instinctual sources . That is why the development phases were named oral , anal and phallic after the so-called erogenous zones , based on the mucous membrane or skin zones , the irritation of which has a luscious quality. "

"The acts of gratification associated with the corresponding erogenous zones are defined as partial drives that are assumed to enter adult, genital sexuality as fore-pleasure."

Genitalization of the partial instincts

“The process of sexual development is understood in such a way that the partial drives are integrated into a superordinate pattern of action. This is also known as 'genitalization' . This does not mean a sexual practice, but an integration principle that has its first and preliminary conclusion in genital phase 1 before the latency period. "

This means that since children at this age are not yet physically capable of an adult sexual act, but they still strive for the same relationship with their mother as they do with their father, the Oedipus complex and the castration anxiety associated with it first arise . After the first genital phase, there is a latency period and only in the subsequent second genital phase does adult sexuality develop.

Accordingly, the first three phases (oral, anal, phallic) are also referred to as pregenital or preoedipal .

Relation to perversion

Partial instincts manifest themselves during normal development "as action or fantasy components of adult sexual behavior in the sense of a so-called fore-pleasure". But they can “remain the sole objective of sexual behavior in the perversions. This is then viewed as a fixation . ”That is, if the sexual acts remain exclusively acts that produce fore-pleasure, but no coitus that enables reproduction occurs, this would be described as perversion in this sense .

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• Krause, Rainer. (1998). General psychoanalytic pathology (Volume 2). Kohlhammer: Stuttgart.