2.6 Highlights of psychoanalysis (freud and others)  (Page 3/4)

Even just acting aggressive independent of triggers can be a power play that can make people feel better about themselves. That would be considered more a function of the id, whereas defensive mechanisms would be considered a part of the ego because a defensive reaction isn’t instinctual it is logical and based in reality, not based off of immediate gratification. Someone that wants something passionately is driven by instinct to want that thing. The more powerful the emotion and the drive, the more instinctual it probably is. It is hard to have a large drive that you create consciously, however instinct can be a powerful force to aid conscious desires. When people are defensive they are being less selfish (and less driven) than when they act off of instinct and pursue their own objectives for immediate gratification.

• Freud thought there was a death instinct, Thanatos , and a life instinct, Eros . The death instinct was the desire for people to revert back to absolute zero, it wasn’t a striving for pleasure but instead a desire to die and achieve nothingness. This could be considered achieving absolute pleasure in a sense, however, and was termed by Barbara Low “the Nirvana principle”. Freud believed that you only observe the death instinct “after it has become diverted outward as an instinct of destruction” S. Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, W. W. Norton&Co., p. 22 – so basically as aggression.
• The life instinct represented the tendencies of people to bind together, preserve, unify and build up. The term libido was used to apply not only to sexual instincts but to “the whole available energy of Eros” Ibid and that it neutralized destructive impulses. Eros also included instincts for preservation of the species and self preservation, self love and love of others, and the reality principle.

Importance: It is important that he labeled the life and death instincts as instincts because that word “instinct” alone suggests more information about them. It implies that people are constantly wanting to die and constantly wanting to live, and that people do all the actions and beliefs to achieve those two things. For instance, aggression is destructive and not productive, so it might suggest someone wants to die. But at the same time people want to live, they want to be productive and love. It suggests that these emotions of love and hate are with people constantly, that there is a complex dynamic going on that includes people having strong opposing emotions.

• The preconscious (also known as the foreconscious) is the various information available to people (such as memories and perceptions). Depending on the circumstance, certain information will be available to varying degrees. It might take different amount of effort to bring certain information to surface into the consciousness. The unconscious consists of information that cannot be brought up consciously.
• Freud noted that diametrically opposite meanings frequently stand side by side. For instance someone might want two opposite things unconsciously, and have no problem with that unconsciously because the unconscious is not logical. For instance someone might want to leave their parents and join the army to gain freedom, but the army might be more authoritarian. However, unconsciously they might want both the freedom of leaving their parents and the structure of the army even though that contradicts what the person might have been thinking consciously. Consciously they might only want one and not want the other (a secondary process), because the conscious is logical.