Dynamics of Personality, Drives/Instincts and Anxiety

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Drive

Came from the German word Trieb and often translated as Drive or Instinct

Differences between Drive, Instinct, and Impulse

• Instinct - Automatic behavior driven by biology, shared and typically unlearned within species, Freud associate instinct on animals more than humans

• Drive - Are internal forces or pressures that push individuals to act in certain way, it operate as a constant motivational force

2 major groups/headings of drives

• Sex Drive, also known as Eros or Life Drive

• Aggression Drive, also known as Thanatos or Death Drive

Psychic energy of the drives

Libido is the psychic energy of the Sex drive while the psychic energy of the Aggressive drive was not given a name

Each basic drive has 4 characteristics

• Impetus

• Source

• Aim

• Object

Impetus

Is the amount of force the drive exerts

Source

The region of the body in a state of excitation or tension

Aim

To seek pleasure by removing that excitation of reducing the tension

Object

The person or the thing that serves as the means through which the aim is satisfied

Sex Drive

The aim of this drive is pleasure, but this pleasure is not limited to genital satisfaction, Freud believe that the entire body is invested with libido

Erogenous zones

the organs/parts capable of producing sexual pleasures besides the genitals

flexibility of the eros

• the path where eros can achieve its aim can be varied

• since the path is flexible and sexual pleasure can stem from other organs, such behavior generated by the eros is difficult to recognize as sexual behavior

• all pleasurable activities are traceable to sexual drive

Sex Drive has many forms (manifestations)

• narcissism

• love

• sadism

• masochism

Sadism and Masochism possess components of the aggressive drive

Narcissism

• Primary narcissism - Infants are primarily self-centered, with their libido invested almost exclusively on their own ego

• Secondary narcissism - Moderate degree of self-love, during puberty adolescents often redirect their libido back to the ego and become pre-occupied with personal appearance and self-interest

Love

• Develops when people invest their libido on an object/person other than themselves

• During infancy children experience sex or sexual love from their mother

Aim-inhibited love

Is a kind of love originated from inhibiting/repressing overt sexual love for relatives

Relationship of love and narcissism

narcissism involves love of self, where as love is often accompanied by narcissistic tendencies

Sadism

is the need for sexual pleasure by inflicting pain or humiliation to others

Masochism

is a sexual pleasure by inflicting pain by themselves or by others

Aggressive drive

The aim of this drive is to return the organism to an inorganic state

The ultimate inorganic state is death, the final aim of the aggressive drive is self-destruction

Forms of aggressive drive

• teasing, gossip, sarcasm, religious persecution, humor, humiliation, and enjoyment of other people’s suffering.

• The aggressive tendency is present in everyone

• the aggressive drive also explains the need for barriers (rules) and commandments like “love thy neighbor” to inhibit the strong and often unconscious desire to hurt others

Anxiety

It is a felt, affective, unpleasant state accompanied by a physical sensation that warns the person against impending danger

Description/feeling of anxiety

the unpleasantness is often vague and hard to pinpoint, but the anxiety itself is always felt

Id, ego, and superego’s role to anxiety

only ego can produce anxiety while the id and superego creates different kinds of anxiety

• Neurotic Anxiety

• Moral Anxiety

• Realistic Anxiety

Neurotic Anxiety

Results from ego’s dependence on the id, defines as apprehension about an unknown danger. The feeling itself exists in the ego, but it originates from id impulses

Moral Anxiety

Results from ego’s dependence on superego, stems from the conflict between the ego and superego

Realistic Anxiety

dependence on the outer world, closely related to fear

Anxiety’s purpose

serves as ab ego-preserving mechanism because it signals that some danger is at hand

anxiety is also self-regulating because it precipitates repression, which in turn reduces the pain of anxiety