Pleasure principle (psychology)

Last updated

In Freudian psychoanalysis, the pleasure principle ( ‹See Tfd› German : Lustprinzip) [1] is the instinctive seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain to satisfy biological and psychological needs. [2] Specifically, the pleasure principle is the animating force behind the id. [3]

Contents

Precursors

Epicurus in the ancient world, and later Jeremy Bentham, laid stress upon the role of pleasure in directing human life, the latter stating: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure". [4]

Freud's most immediate predecessor and guide however was Gustav Theodor Fechner and his psychophysics. [5]

Freudian developments

Freud used the idea that the mind seeks pleasure and avoids pain in his Project for a Scientific Psychology of 1895, [6] as well as in the theoretical portion of The Interpretation of Dreams of 1900, where he termed it the 'unpleasure principle'. [7]

In the Two Principles of Mental Functioning of 1911, contrasting it with the reality principle, Freud spoke for the first time of "the pleasure-unpleasure principle, or more shortly the pleasure principle". [7] [8] In 1923, linking the pleasure principle to the libido he described it as the watchman over life; and in Civilization and Its Discontents of 1930 he still considered that "what decides the purpose of life is simply the programme of the pleasure principle". [9]

While on occasion Freud wrote of the near omnipotence of the pleasure principle in mental life, [10] elsewhere he referred more cautiously to the mind's strong (but not always fulfilled) tendency towards the pleasure principle. [11]

Two principles

Freud contrasted the pleasure principle with the counterpart concept of the reality principle, which describes the capacity to defer gratification of a desire when circumstantial reality disallows its immediate gratification. In infant and early childhood, the id rules behavior by obeying only the pleasure principle. People at that age only seek immediate gratification, aiming to satisfy cravings such as hunger and thirst, and at later ages the id seeks out sex. [12]

Maturity is learning to endure the pain of deferred gratification. Freud argued that "an ego thus educated has become 'reasonable'; it no longer lets itself be governed by the pleasure principle, but obeys the reality principle, which also, at bottom, seeks to obtain pleasure, but pleasure which is assured through taking account of reality, even though it is pleasure postponed and diminished". [12]

The beyond

In his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle , published in 1921, Freud considered the possibility of "the operation of tendencies beyond the pleasure principle, that is, of tendencies more primitive than it and independent of it". [13] By examining the role of repetition compulsion in potentially over-riding the pleasure principle, [14] Freud ultimately developed his opposition between Libido, the life instinct, and the death drive.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sigmund Freud</span> Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis (1856–1939)

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.

In psychoanalytic theory the “id, the ego and the superego” are three different, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus as Sigmund Freud summarized and defined it in his structural model of the psyche. He developed these three terms to describe the basic structure and various phenomena of mental life as they was encountered in psychoanalytic practice. Freud himself used the German terms das Es, Ich, and Über-Ich, which literally translate as "the it", "I", and "over-I". The Latin terms id, ego and superego were chosen by his original translators and have remained in use.

Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development relating to the practice of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work. The psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse regarding psychological treatments after the 1960s, long after Freud's death in 1939. Freud had ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies and shifted his focus to the study of the psyche, and on treatment using free association and the phenomena of transference. His study emphasized the recognition of childhood events that could influence the mental functioning of adults. His examination of the genetic and then the developmental aspects gave the psychoanalytic theory its characteristics.

<i>Civilization and Its Discontents</i> Book by Sigmund Freud

Civilization and Its Discontents is a book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was written in 1929 and first published in German in 1930 as Das Unbehagen in der Kultur.

The genital stage in psychoanalysis is the term used by Sigmund Freud to describe the final stage of human psychosexual development. The individual develops a strong sexual interest in people outside of the family.

In psychoanalysis, cathexis is defined as the process of allocation of mental or emotional energy to a person, object, or idea.

In psychoanalysis, psychosexual development is a central element of the sexual drive theory. According to Freud, personality develops through a series of childhood stages in which pleasure seeking energies from the child become focused on certain erogenous areas. An erogenous zone is characterized as an area of the body that is particularly sensitive to stimulation. The five psychosexual stages are the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital. The erogenous zone associated with each stage serves as a source of pleasure. Being unsatisfied at any particular stage can result in fixation. On the other hand, being satisfied can result in a healthy personality. Sigmund Freud proposed that if the child experienced frustration at any of the psychosexual developmental stages, they would experience anxiety that would persist into adulthood as a neurosis, a functional mental disorder.

Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Janet</span> French physician and psychologist (1859–1947)

Pierre Marie Félix Janet was a pioneering French psychologist, physician, philosopher, and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory.

In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness. It was originally proposed by Sabina Spielrein in her paper "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being" in 1912, which was then taken up by Sigmund Freud in 1920 in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. This concept has been translated as "opposition between the ego or death instincts and the sexual or life instincts". In Beyond thePleasure Principle, Freud used the plural "death drives" (Todestriebe) much more frequently than the singular.

In Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis, the reality principle is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly, as opposed to acting according to the pleasure principle. The reality principle is the governing principle of the actions taken by the ego, after its slow development from a "pleasure-ego" into a "reality-ego".

Repetition compulsion is the unconscious tendency of a person to repeat a traumatic event or its circumstances. This may take the form of symbolically or literally re-enacting the event, or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to occur again. Repetition compulsion can also take the form of dreams in which memories and feelings of what happened are repeated, and in cases of psychosis, may even be hallucinated.

<i>Beyond the Pleasure Principle</i> 1920 essay by Sigmund Freud

Beyond the Pleasure Principle is a 1920 essay by Sigmund Freud. It marks a major turning point in the formulation of his drive theory, where Freud had previously attributed self-preservation in human behavior to the drives of Eros and the regulation of libido, governed by the pleasure principle. Revising this as inconclusive, Freud theorized beyond the pleasure principle, newly considering the death drives which refers to the tendency towards destruction and annihilation, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.

In psychoanalysis, preconscious is the loci preceding consciousness. Thoughts are preconscious when they are unconscious at a particular moment, but are not repressed. Therefore, preconscious thoughts are available for recall and easily 'capable of becoming conscious'—a phrase attributed by Sigmund Freud to Josef Breuer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ego ideal</span> Freudian concept

In Freudian psychoanalysis, the ego ideal is the inner image of oneself as one wants to become. It consists of "the individual's conscious and unconscious images of what he would like to be, patterned after certain people whom ... he regards as ideal."

Ego integrity was the term given by Erik Erikson to the last of his eight stages of psychosocial development, and used by him to represent 'a post-narcissistic love of the human ego—as an experience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense, no matter how dearly paid for'.

Fixation is a concept that was originated by Sigmund Freud (1905) to denote the persistence of anachronistic sexual traits. The term subsequently came to denote object relationships with attachments to people or things in general persisting from childhood into adult life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metapsychology</span> Psychological aspect

Metapsychology is that aspect of a psychological theory that discusses the terms that are essential to it, but leaves aside or transcends the phenomena that the theory deals with. Psychology refers to the concrete conditions of the human psyche, metapsychology to psychology itself.

Postponement of affect is a defence mechanism which may be used against a variety of feelings or emotions. Such a "temporal displacement, resulting simply in a later appearance of the affect reaction and in thus preventing the recognition of the motivating connection, is most frequently used against the affects of rage and grief".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freud's psychoanalytic theories</span> Look to unconscious drives to explain human behavior

Sigmund Freud is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are "simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us".

References

  1. ↑ Laplanche, Jean; Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand (2018) [1973]. "Pleasure Principle". The Language of Psychoanalysis. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. ISBN   978-0-429-92124-7.
  2. ↑ Snyder, C. R.; Lopez, Shane J. (2007). Positive Psychology. Sage Publications, Inc. ISBN   978-0-7619-2633-7.
  3. ↑ Carlson, Neil R.; Heth, C. Donald (2007). Psychology - the science of behaviour. Pearson Education Canada. pp.  700. ISBN   978-0-205-64524-4.
  4. ↑ R. Gregory ed., The Oxford Companion to the Mind (1987) p. 308.
  5. ↑ Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology (PFL 11), pp. 276-7.
  6. ↑ Peter Gay, Freud (1989), p. 80.
  7. 1 2 On Metapsychology, p. 36.
  8. ↑ Nagera, Humberto, ed. (2014) [1970]. "The Pleasure Principle (pp. 60—61)". Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts on Metapsychology, Conflicts, Anxiety and Other Subjects. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. ISBN   978-1-31767042-1.
  9. ↑ Sigmund Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion (PFL 12), p. 263.
  10. ↑ Sigmund Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10), p. 243.
  11. ↑ On Metapsychology, p. 278.
  12. 1 2 Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures 16.357.
  13. ↑ On Metapsychology, p. 287.
  14. ↑ On Metapsychology, p. 293.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.