THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC THEORY OF LIBIDO
The chief source of the history of the analytic conception of libido is
Freud’s “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.” There the term
libido is conceived by him in the original narrow sense of sexual
impulse, sexual need. Experience forces us to the assumption of a
capacity for displacement of the libido, because functions or
localizations of non-sexual force are undoubtedly capable of taking up a
certain amount of libidinous sexual impetus, a libidinous afflux.[238]
Functions or objects could, therefore, obtain sexual value, which under
normal circumstances really have nothing to do with sexuality.[239] From
this fact results the Freudian comparison of the libido with a stream,
which is divisible, which can be dammed up, which overflows into
branches, and so on.[240] Freud’s original conception does not interpret
“everything sexual,” although this has been asserted by critics, but
recognizes the existence of certain forces, the nature of which are not
well known; to which Freud, however, compelled by the notorious facts
which are evident to any layman, grants the capacity to receive
“affluxes of libido.” The hypothetical idea at the basis is the symbol
of the “Triebbündel”[241] (bundle of impulses), wherein the sexual
impulse figures as a partial impulse of the whole system, and its
encroachment into the other realms of impulse is a fact of experience.
The theory of Freud, branching off from this interpretation, according
to which the motor forces of a neurotic system correspond precisely to
their libidinous additions to other (non-sexual) functional impulses,
has been sufficiently proven as correct, it seems to me, by the work of
Freud and his school.[242] Since the appearance of the “Three
Contributions,” in 1905, a change has taken place[243] in the libido
conception; its field of application has been widened. An extremely
clear example of this amplification is this present work. However, I
must state that Freud, as well as myself, saw the need of widening the
conception of libido. It was paranoia, so closely related to dementia
præcox, which seemed to compel Freud to enlarge the earlier limits of
the conception. The passage in question, which I will quote here, word
for word, reads:[244]
“A third consideration which presents itself, in regard to the views
developed here, starts the query as to whether we should accept as
sufficiently effectual the universal receding of the libido from the
outer world, in order to interpret from that, the end of the world: or
whether in this case, the firmly rooted possession of the ‘I’ must not
suffice to uphold the rapport with the outer world. Then one must
either let that which we call possession of the libido (interest from
erotic sources) coincide with interest in general, or else take into
consideration the possibility that great disturbance in the
disposition of the libido can also induce a corresponding disturbance
in the possession of the ‘I.’ Now, these are the problems, which we
are still absolutely helpless and unfitted to answer. Things would be
different could we proceed from a safe fund of knowledge of instinct.
But the truth is, we have nothing of that kind at our disposal. We
understand instinct as the resultant of the reaction of the somatic
and the psychic. We see in it the psychical representation of organic
forces and take the popular distinction between the ‘I’ impulse and
the sexual impulse, which appears to us to be in accord with the
biological double rôle of the individual being who aspires to his own
preservation as well as to the preservation of the species. But
anything beyond this is a structure, which we set up, and also
willingly let fall again in order to orient ourselves in the confusion
of the dark processes of the soul; we expect particularly, from the
psychoanalytic investigations into diseased soul processes, to have
certain decisions forced upon us in regard to questions of the theory
of instinct. This expectation has not yet been fulfilled on account of
the still immature and limited investigations in these fields. At
present the possibility of the reaction of libido disturbance upon the
possession of the ‘I’ can be shown as little as the reverse; the
secondary or induced disturbances of the libido processes through
abnormal changes in the ‘I.’ It is probable that processes of this
sort form the distinctive character of the psychoses. The conclusions
arising from this, in relation to paranoia, are at present uncertain.
One cannot assert that the paranoiac has completely withdrawn his
interest from the outer world, nor withdrawn into the heights of
repression, as one sometimes sees in certain other forms of
hallucinatory psychoses. He takes notice of the outer world, he takes
account of its changes, he is stirred to explanations by their
influence, and therefore I consider it highly probable that the
changed relation to the world is to be explained, wholly or in great
part, by the deficiency of the libido interest.”
In this passage Freud plainly touches upon the question whether the
well-known longing for reality of the paranoic dement (and the dementia
præcox patients),[245] to whom I have especially called attention in my
book, “The Psychology of Dementia Præcox,”[246] is to be traced back to
the withdrawal of the “libidinous affluxes” alone, or whether this
coincides with the so-called objective interest in general. It is hardly
to be assumed that the normal “fonction du réel” (Janet)[247] is
maintained only through affluxes of libido or erotic interest. The fact
is that in very many cases reality disappears entirely, so that not a
trace of psychological adaptation or orientation can be recognized.
Reality is repressed under these circumstances and replaced by the
contents of the complex. One must of necessity say that not only the
erotic interest but the interest in general has disappeared, that is to
say, the whole adaptation to reality has ceased. To this category belong
the stuporose and catatonic automatons.
I have previously made use of the expression “psychic energy” in my
“Psychology of Dementia Præcox” because I was unable to establish the
theory of this psychosis upon the conception of the displacement of the
affluxes of libido. My experience, at that time chiefly psychiatric, did
not enable me to understand this theory. However, the correctness of
this theory in regard to neuroses, strictly speaking the transference
neuroses, was proven to me later after increased experience in the field
of hysteria and compulsion neuroses. In the territory of these neuroses
it is mainly a question whether any portion of the libido which is
spared through the specific repression becomes introverted and
regressive into earlier paths of transference; for example, the path of
the parental transference.[248] With that, however, the former
non-sexual psychologic adaptation to the environment remains preserved
so far as it does not concern the erotic and its secondary positions
(symptoms). The reality which is lacking to the patients is just that
portion of the libido to be found in the neurosis. In dementia præcox,
on the contrary, not merely that portion of libido which is saved in the
well-known specific sexual repression is lacking for reality, but much
more than one could write down to the account of sexuality in a strict
sense. The function of reality is lacking to such a degree that even the
motive power must be encroached upon in the loss. The sexual character
of this must be disputed absolutely,[249] for reality is not understood
to be a sexual function. Moreover, if that were so, the introversion of
the libido in the strict sense must have as a result a loss of reality
in the neuroses, and, indeed, a loss which could be compared with that
of dementia præcox. These facts have rendered it impossible for me to
transfer Freud’s theory of libido to dementia præcox, and, therefore, I
am of the opinion that Abraham’s investigation[250] is hardly tenable
theoretically, from the standpoint of the Freudian theory of libido. If
Abraham believes that through the withdrawal of the libido from the
outer world the paranoid system or the schizophrenic symptomatology
results, then this assumption is not justified from the standpoint of
the knowledge of that time, because a mere libido introversion and
regression leads, speedily, as Freud has clearly shown, into the
neuroses, and, strictly speaking, into the transference neuroses, and
not into dementia præcox. Therefore, the transference of the libido
theory to dementia præcox is impossible, because this illness produces a
loss of reality which cannot be explained by the deficiency of the
libido defined in this narrow sense.
It affords me especial satisfaction that our teacher also, when he laid
his hand on the delicate material of the paranoic psychology, was forced
to doubt the applicability of the conception of libido held by him at
that time. The sexual definition of this did not permit me to understand
those disturbances of function, which affect the vague territory of the
hunger instinct just as much as that of the sexual instinct. For a long
time the theory of libido seemed to me inapplicable to dementia præcox.
With increasing experience in analytical work, however, I became aware
of a gradual change in my conception of libido. In place of the
descriptive definition of the “Three Contributions” there gradually grew
up a generic definition of the libido, which rendered it possible for me
to replace the expression “psychic energy” by the term “libido.” I was
forced to ask myself whether indeed the function of reality to-day does
not consist only in its smaller part of libido sexualis and in the
greater part of other impulses? It is still a very important question
whether phylogenetically the function of reality is not, at least in
great part, of sexual origin. To answer this question directly in regard
to the function of reality is not possible, but we shall attempt to come
to an understanding indirectly.
A fleeting glance at the history of evolution is sufficient to teach
us that countless complicated functions to which to-day must be
denied any sexual character were originally pure derivations from
the general impulse of propagation. During the ascent through the
animal kingdom an important displacement in the fundamentals of the
procreative instinct has taken place. The mass of the reproductive
products with the uncertainty of fertilization has more and more
been replaced by a controlled impregnation and an effective
protection of the offspring. In this way part of the energy required
in the production of eggs and sperma has been transposed into the
creation of mechanisms for allurement and for protection of the
young. Thus we discover the first instincts of art in animals used
in the service of the impulse of creation, and limited to the
breeding season. The original sexual character of these biological
institutions became lost in their organic fixation and functional
independence. Even if there can be no doubt about the sexual origin
of music, still it would be a poor, unæsthetic generalization if one
were to include music in the category of sexuality. A similar
nomenclature would then lead us to classify the cathedral of Cologne
as mineralogy because it is built of stones. It can be a surprise
only to those to whom the history of evolution is unknown to find
how few things there really are in human life which cannot be
reduced in the last analysis to the instinct of procreation. It
includes very nearly everything, I think, which is beloved and dear
to us. We spoke just now of libido as the creative impulse and at
the same time we allied ourselves with the conception which opposes
libido to hunger in the same way that the instinct of the
preservation of the species is opposed to the instinct of
self-preservation. In nature, this artificial distinction does not
exist. Here we see only a continuous life impulse, a will to live
which will attain the creation of the whole species through the
preservation of the individual. Thus far this conception coincides
with the idea of the Will in Schopenhauer, for we can conceive Will
objectively, only as a manifestation of an internal desire. This
throwing of psychological perceptions into material reality is
characterized philosophically as “introjection.” (Ferenczi’s
conception of “introjection” denoted the reverse, that is, the
taking of the outer world into the inner world.)[251] Naturally, the
conception of the world was distorted by introjection. Freud’s
conception of the principle of desire is a voluntary formulation of
the idea of introjection, while his once more voluntarily conceived
“principle of reality” corresponds functionally to that which I
designate as “corrective of reality,” and R. Avenarius[252]
designates as “empiriokritische Prinzipialkoordination.” The
conception of power owes its existence to this very introjection;
this has already been said expressively by Galileo in his remark
that its origin is to be sought in the subjective perception of the
muscular power of the individual. Because we have already arrived at
the daring assumption that the libido, which was employed originally
in the exclusive service of egg and seed production, now appears
firmly organized in the function of nest-building, and can no longer
be employed otherwise; similarly this conception forces us to relate
it to every desire, including hunger. For now we can no longer make
any essential distinction between the will to build a nest and the
will to eat. This view brings us to a conception of libido, which
extends over the boundaries of the physical sciences into a
philosophical aspect—to a conception of the will in general. I must
give this bit of psychological “Voluntarismus” into the hands of the
philosophers for them to manage. For the rest I refer to the words
of Schopenhauer[253] relating to this. In connection with the
psychology of this conception (by which I understand neither
metapsychology nor metaphysics) I am reminded here of the cosmogenic
meaning of Eros in Plato and Hesiod,[254] and also of the orphic
figure of Phanes, the “_shining one_,” the first created, the
“father of Eros.” Phanes has also orphically the significance of
Priapus; he is a god of love, bisexual and similar to the Theban
Dionysus Lysios.[255] The orphic meaning of Phanes is similar to
that of the Indian Kâma, the god of love, which is also the
cosmogenic principle. To Plotinus, of the Neo-Platonic school, the
world-soul is the energy of the intellect.[256] Plotinus compares
“The One,” the creative primal principle, with light in general; the
intellect with the Sun (♂), the world-soul with the moon (♀). In
another comparison Plotinus compares “The One” with the Father, the
intellect with the Son.[257] The “One” designated as Uranus is
transcendent. The son as Kronos has dominion over the visible world.
The world-soul (designated as Zeus) appears as subordinate to him.
The “One,” or the Usia of the whole existence is designated by
Plotinus as hypostatic, also as the three forms of emanation, also
μία οὐσία ἐν τρισὶν ὑποστάσεσιν.[258] As Drews observed, this is
also the formula of the Christian Trinity (God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost) as it was decided upon at the councils
of Nicea and Constantinople.[259] It may also be noticed that
certain early Christian sectarians attributed a maternal
significance to the Holy Ghost (world-soul, moon). (See what follows
concerning Chi of Timæus.) According to Plotinus, the world-soul has
a tendency toward a divided existence and towards divisibility, the
_conditio sine qua non_ of all change, creation and procreation
(also a maternal quality). It is an “unending all of life” and
wholly energy; it is a living organism of ideas, which attain in it
effectiveness and reality.[260] The intellect is its procreator, its
father, which, having conceived it, brings it to development in
thought.[261]
“What lies enclosed in the intellect, comes to development in the
world-soul as logos, fills it with meaning and makes it as if
intoxicated with nectar.”[262]
Nectar is analogous to soma, the drink of fertility and of life, also to
sperma. The soul is fructified by the intellect; as oversoul it is
called heavenly Aphrodite, as the undersoul the earthly Aphrodite. “It
knows the birth pangs,”[263] and so on. The bird of Aphrodite, the dove,
is not without good cause the symbol of the Holy Ghost.
This fragment of the history of philosophy, which may easily be
enlarged, shows the significance of the endopsychic perception of the
libido and of its symbolism in human thought.
In the diversity of natural phenomena we see the desire, the libido, in
the most diverse applications and forms. We see the libido in the stage
of childhood almost wholly occupied in the instinct of nutrition, which
takes care of the upbuilding of the body. With the development of the
body there are successively opened new spheres of application for the
libido. The last sphere of application, and surpassing all the others in
its functional significance, is sexuality, which seems at first almost
bound up with the function of nutrition. (Compare with this the
influence on procreation of the conditions of nutrition in lower animals
and plants.) In the territory of sexuality, the libido wins that
formation, the enormous importance of which has justified us in the use
of the term libido in general. Here the libido appears very properly as
an impulse of procreation, and almost in the form of an undifferentiated
sexual primal libido, as an energy of growth, which clearly forces the
individual towards division, budding, etc. (The clearest distinction
between the two forms of libido is to be found among those animals in
whom the stage of nutrition is separated from the sexual stage by a
chrysalis stage.)
From that sexual primal libido which produced millions of eggs and seeds
from one small creature derivatives have been developed with the great
limitation of the fecundity; derivatives in which the functions are
maintained by a special differentiated libido. This differentiated
libido is henceforth desexualized because it is dissociated from its
original function of egg and sperma production; nor is there any
possibility of restoring it to its original function. Thus, in general,
the process of development consists in an increasing transformation of
the primal libido which only produced products of generation to the
secondary functions of allurement and protection of the young. This now
presupposes a very different and very complicated relation to reality, a
true function of reality, which, functionally inseparable, is bound up
with the needs of procreation. Thus the altered mode of procreation
carries with it as a correlate a correspondingly heightened adaptation
to reality.[264]
In this way we attain an insight into certain primitive conditions of
the function of reality. It would be radically wrong to say that its
compelling power is a sexual one. It was a sexual one to a large extent.
The process of transformation of the primal libido into secondary
impulses always took place in the form of affluxes of sexual libido,
that is to say, sexuality became deflected from its original destination
and a portion of it turned, little by little, increasing in amount, into
the phylogenetic impulse of the mechanisms of allurement and of
protection of the young. This diversion of the sexual libido from the
sexual territory into associated functions is still taking place.[265]
Where this operation succeeds without injury to the adaptation of the
individual it is called _sublimation_. Where the attempt does not
succeed it is called _repression_.
The descriptive standpoint of psychology accepts the multiplicity of
instincts, among which is the sexual instinct, as a special phenomenon;
moreover, it recognizes certain affluxes of libido to non-sexual
instincts.
Quite otherwise is the genetic standpoint. It regards the multiplicity
of instincts as issuing from a relative unity, the primal libido;[266]
it recognizes that definite amounts of the primal libido are split off,
as it were, associated with the newly formed functions and finally
merged in them. As a result of this it is impossible, from the genetic
standpoint, to hold to the strictly limited conception of libido of the
descriptive standpoint; it leads inevitably to a broadening of the
conception. With this we come to the theory of libido that I have
surreptitiously introduced into the first part of this work for the
purpose of making this genetic conception familiar to the reader. The
explanation of this harmless deceit I have saved until the second part.
For the first time, through this genetic idea of libido, which in every
way surpasses the descriptive sexual, the transference was made possible
of the Freudian libido theory into the psychology of mental disease. The
passage quoted above shows how the present Freudian conception of libido
collides with the problem of the psychoses.[267] Therefore, when I speak
of libido, I associate with it the genetic conception which contains not
only the immediate sexual but also an amount of desexualized primal
libido. When I say a sick person takes his libido away from the outer
world, in order to take possession of the inner world with it, I do not
mean that he takes away merely the affluxes from the function of
reality, but he takes energy away, according to my view, from those
desexualized instincts which regularly and properly support the function
of reality.
With this alteration in the libido conception, certain parts of our
terminology need revision as well. As we know, Abraham has undertaken
the experiment of transferring the Freudian libido theory to dementia
præcox and has conceived the characteristic lack of rapport and the
cessation of the function of reality as autoerotism. This conception
needs revision. Hysterical introversion of the libido leads to
autoerotism, since the patient’s erotic afflux of libido designed for
the function of adaptation is introverted, whereby his ego is occupied
by the corresponding amount of erotic libido. The schizophrenic,
however, shuns reality far more than merely the erotic afflux would
account for; therefore, his inner condition is very different from that
of the hysteric. He is more than autoerotic, he builds up an
intra-psychic equivalent for reality, for which purpose he has
necessarily to employ other dynamics than that afforded by the erotic
afflux. Therefore, I must grant to Bleuler the right to reject the
conception of autoerotism, taken from the study of hysterical neuroses,
and there legitimate, and to replace it by the conception of
autismus.[268] I am forced to say that this term is better fitted to
facts than autoerotism. With this I acknowledge my earlier idea of the
identity of autismus (Bleuler) and autoerotism (Freud) as unjustified,
and, therefore, retract it.[269] This thorough revision of the
conception of libido has compelled me to this.
From these considerations it follows necessarily that the descriptive
psychologic conception of libido must be given up in order for the
libido theory to be applied to dementia præcox. That it is there
applicable is best shown in Freud’s brilliant investigation of
Schreber’s phantasies. The question now is whether this genetic
conception of libido proposed by me is suitable for the neuroses. I
believe that this question may be answered affirmatively. “Natura non
fecit saltum”—it is not merely to be expected but it is also probable
that at least temporary functional disturbances of various degrees
appear in the neuroses, which transcend the boundaries of the immediate
sexual; in any case, this occurs in psychotic episodes. I consider the
broadening of the conception of libido which has developed through the
most recent analytic work as a real advance which will prove of especial
advantage in the important field of the introversion psychoses. Proofs
of the correctness of my assumption are already at hand. It has become
apparent through a series of researches of the Zurich School, which are
now published in part,[270] that the phantastic substitution products
which take the place of the disturbed function of reality bear
unmistakable traces of archaic thought. This confirmation is parallel to
the postulate asserted above, according to which reality is deprived,
not merely of an immediate (individual) amount of libido, but also of an
already differentiated or desexualized quantity of libido, which, among
normal people, has belonged to the function of reality ever since
prehistoric times. _A dropping away of the last acquisition of the
function of reality (or adaptation) must of necessity be replaced by an
earlier mode of adaptation._ We find this principle already in the
doctrines of the neuroses, that is, that a repression resulting from the
failure of the recent transference is replaced by an old way of
transference, namely, through a regressive revival of the parent imago.
In the transference neurosis (hysterical), where merely a part of the
_immediate sexual_ libido is taken away from reality by the specific
sexual repression, the substituted product is a phantasy of individual
origin and significance, with only a trace of those archaic traits found
in the phantasies of those mental disorders in which a portion of the
general human function of reality organized since antiquity has broken
off. This portion can be replaced only by a generally valid archaic
surrogate. We owe a simple and clear example of this proposition to the
investigation of Honegger.[271] A paranoic of good intelligence who has
a clear idea of the spherical form of the earth and its rotation around
the sun replaces the modern astronomical views by a system worked out in
great detail, which one must call archaic, in which the earth is a flat
disc over which the sun travels.[272] (I am reminded of the sun-phallus
mentioned in the first part of this book, for which we are also indebted
to Honegger.) Spielrein has likewise furnished some very interesting
examples of archaic definitions which begin in certain illnesses to
overlay the real meanings of the modern word. For example, Spielrein’s
patient had correctly discovered the mythological significance of
alcohol, the intoxicating drink, to be “an effusion of seed.”[273] She
also had a symbolism of boiling which I must place parallel to the
especially important alchemistic vision of Zosimos,[274] who found
people in boiling water within the cavity of the altar.[275] This
patient used earth in place of mother, and also water to express
mother.[276] I refrain from further examples because future work of the
Zurich School will furnish abundant evidence of this sort.
My foregoing proposition of the replacement of the disturbed function of
reality by an archaic surrogate is supported by an excellent paradox of
Spielrein’s. She says: “I often had the illusion that these patients
might be simply victims of a folk superstition.” As a matter of fact,
patients substitute phantasies for reality, phantasies similar to the
actually incorrect mental products of the past, which, however, were
once the view of reality. As the Zosimos vision shows, the old
superstitions were symbols[277] which permitted transitions to the most
remote territory. This must have been very expedient for certain archaic
periods, for by this means convenient bridges were offered to lead a
partial amount of libido over into the mental realm. Evidently Spielrein
thinks of a similar biological meaning of the symbols when she
says:[278]
“Thus a symbol seems to me to owe its origin in general to the
tendency of a complex for dissolution in the common totality of
thought.... The complex is robbed by that of the personal element....
This tendency towards dissolution (transformation) of every individual
complex is the motive for poetry, painting, for every sort of art.”
When here we replace the formal conception “complex” by the conception
of the quantity of libido (the total effect of the complex), which, from
the standpoint of the libido theory, is a justified measure, then does
Spielrein’s view easily agree with mine. When primitive man understands
in general what an act of generation is, then, according to the
principle of the path of least resistance, he never can arrive at the
idea of replacing the generative organs by a sword-blade or a shuttle;
but this is the case with certain Indians, who explain the origin of
mankind by the union of the two transference symbols. He then must be
compelled to devise an analogous thing in order to bring a manifest
sexual interest upon an asexual expression. The propelling motive of
this transition of the _immediate sexual_ libido to the non-sexual
representation can, in my opinion, be found only in a _resistance which
opposes primitive sexuality_.
It appears as if, by this means of phantastic analogy formation, more
libido would gradually become desexualized, because increasingly more
phantasy correlates were put in the place of the primitive achievement
of the sexual libido. With this an enormous broadening of the world idea
was gradually developed because new objects were always assimilated as
sexual symbols. It is a question whether the human consciousness has not
been brought to its present state entirely or in great part in this
manner. It is evident, in any case, that an important significance in
the development of the human mind is due to the impulse towards the
discovery of analogy. We must agree thoroughly with Steinthal when he
says that an absolutely overweening importance must be granted to the
little phrase “Gleich wie” (even as) in the history of the development
of thought. It is easy to believe that the carryover of the libido to a
phantastic correlate has led primitive man to a number of the most
important discoveries.