Freud's Five Concepts of Instincts and Drives Term Paper

Freud Concepts of Instincts, Drives

Desires, instincts, and drives are central to Freud's psychoanalytical theory. Although Sigmund Freud altered his theories throughout the course of his career, the core concepts of instincts and drives remain relatively constant. Freud first expressed the basic human instincts as being hunger and sex. Later, his theories matured, and Freud deeply analyzed the nature of human sexual drives. In his writings, Freud focused much on the conflicts that generally arise between the individual's innate instincts and the rules and mores of the society. All human beings continually struggle through various stages of their psycho-social development to restrain and express their desires, drives, and instincts. Freud framed these conflicts between desire and civilization into two major groupings: the conflict between sexual drives and civilization; and the conflict between self-serving happiness and civilization.

Freud's views on human sexuality are notorious and controversial. His Oedipus complex and other theories of early childhood sexuality in particular cause dissention among social scientists. Regardless, Freud's description of sexual drives remains a reasonable means by which to understand the conflicts between innate desires, drives, and instincts, and the overarching social norms and values that guide our culture. Freud distinguished between sex and love, but also noted their being mutually exclusive. Love is more of an expression of selfless devotion than of erotic instinct.

Furthermore, according to Sigmund Freud, sexual desires are not negative or evil in themselves.They only become problematic when sexual desires conflict with the prevailing social or cultural norms. For example, Freud would say that homosexuality is not a negative sexual drive, but that homosexual instincts can cause problems because of public, political, and peer-based disapproval. On the other hand, Freud does not disparage civilization. Rather, he notes the necessity of creating strong civilizations. Social rules have definite and practical functions such as the preservation of the family, parenting, and social order. Restraining instinctual drives becomes necessary in a civilization for other reasons, too. Freud suggests that the sex drive, can be channeled into other activities such as work and political participation.

In addition to his theories on the sexual drives of human beings, Freud developed a cohesive theory on the death wish, which is an extension of the instinct toward aggression. Freud described the aggressive and death desires as being related to the basic hunger drive: the tendency to view the world as hostile and separate from the individual ego. Through such a worldview, the individual builds up his or her ego. Viewing the world as hostile and separate from the individual self is an adaptive but problematic tendency.

The death and aggression instincts cause people to build up their egos and strengthen their characters. By building a strong ego, the individual fortifies his or her separation from the world. However, the individual will tend to….....