562 TRANSITIONS AND REVISIONS

The importance and extensiveness of the topic must be my justi fication

for adding a few more remarks which are somewhat loosely strung
together.
* *

The ego ideal opens up an important avenue for the understanding

of group psychology. In addition to its individual side, this ideal has a
social side; it is also the common ideal of a family, a class or a nation.
It binds not only a person's narcissistic libido, but also a considerable
amount of his homosexual libido, which is in this way turned back into
the ego. The want of satisfaction which arises from the non-fulfilment
of this ideal liberates homosexual libido, and this is transformed into a
sense of guilt (social anxiety). Originally this sense of guilt was a fear of
punishment by the parents, or, more correctly, the fear of losing their
love; later the parents are replaced by an indefinite number of fellow­
men. The frequent causation of paranoia by an injury to the ego, by a
frustration of satisfaction within the sphere of the ego ideal, is thus made
more intelligible, as is the convergence of ideal-formation and subli­
mation in the ego ideal, as well as the involution of sublimations and
the possible transformation of ideals in paraphrenic disorders.

Instincts and Their Vicissitudes

The general war that erupted in early August 1 9 1 4 was a catastrophe for the
culture in which Freud had lived, more or less securely, up to then. Europe,
one may say, never really quite recovered from this calamity. Not unnat­
urally, the war had marked consequences for Freud himself. It was not just
that it brought shortages in food and fuel and made his beloved cigars hard
to obtain. His private life was severely disrupted as he worried about his
three sons in the army; at least two of them, Martin and Ernst, were serving
on the Russian front, often in danger. Psychoanalysis, too, suffered, as
analytic publications came to a virtual standstill; most of Freud's associates
were drafted into the army as physicians; and Freud's schedule of analysands,
normally full to bursting, showed sizable gaps. The belligerent powers with
their ugly chauvinism, and the military campaigns with their brutality and
seemingly interminable blood-letting, gave Freud much to think about. He
professed not to be astonished at the dismal scene, with German professors
returning English honorary degrees and French publicists maligning Ger­
mans as huns, but he confessed to his sadness and disappointment. True,
Freud started the war as something of an Austrian patriot and hoped for a
victory of the Central Powers. But his enthusiasm gradually waned, and it
is significant that throughout the war, he remained in touch with his "en­
emy" Ernest Jones through neutral channels. It should surprise no one that
the prolonged, increasingly senseless slaughter had an impact on Freud's
thought, but that impact should not be exaggerated. In any event, it did not
manifest itself until well after the conclusion of hostilities in November
1918.
INSTINCTS AND THEIR VICISSITUDES 563

Yet the war proved a boon to Freud in one respect: it gave him a good
deal of unexpected, unwelcome, free time. Hence he began to draft a major
book on metapsychology that would summarize, and establish, the essential
elements of psychoanalytic theory. During the spring and summer of 1 9 1 5 ,
he wrote the twelve essays he intended to include i n the book, rapidly and
with little difficulty. Then something happened. Between 1 9 1 5 and 1 9 17,
he did publish the first five of these papers, but after that he resisted persistent
pressure by his friends for the whole work. At some point, indeed, he
destroyed the other seven. (In 1 983, the German psychoanalyst and editor
lise Grubrich-Simitis discovered in the Ferenczi papers a draft of Freud's
twelfth paper, a bold "historical" study of the transference neuroses. It proved
a fascinating glimpse into Freud, the speculative thinker. The draft has been
beautifully edited by Grubrich-Simitis and is available in an English trans­
lation by Alex and Peter T. Hoffer, as A Phylogenetic Fantasy: Overview of
the Transference Neuroses [ 1 987] . ) Freud's unwillingness to let the book
appear remains mysterious, though it seems most likely that he was increas­
ingly dissatisfied with his old "topographic" scheme and not yet ready to
publish the new "structural" theory. The paper of 1 9 1 4 on narcissism (see
above, pp. 545-62) had signalized the need for some rethinking of psy­
choanalytic theory; Freud's refusal to publish his book on metapsychology
strongly hints that he was now fully aware of that need. (See Gay, Freud,
pp. 373-74 . )
The present paper, on the drives, published i n late 1 9 1 5, with its orderly
classification of fundamentals and its opening remarks on the nature of
psychoanalysis as a science, retains more than historical interest. Yet it,
more than the others, would have had to be rewritten if Freud had conceived
it in the 1 920s.

We have often heard it maintained that sciences should be built up on

clear and sharply defined basic concepts. In actual fact no science, not
even the most exact, begins with such definitions. The true beginning
of scientific activity consists rather in describing phenomena and then
in proceeding to group, classify and correlate them . Even at the stage
of description it is not possible to avoid applying certain abstract ideas
to the material in hand, ideas derived from somewhere or other but
certainly not from the new observations alone. Such ideas-which will
later become the basic concepts of the science-are still more indispen­
sable as the material is further worked over. They must at first necessarily
possess some degree of indefiniteness; there can be no question of any
clear delimitation of their content. So long as they remain in this coh­
dition, we come to an understanding about their meaning by making
repeated references to the material of observation from which they appear
to have been derived, but upon which, in fact, they have been imposed.
Thus, strictly speaking, they are in the nature of conventions-although
everything depends on their not being arbitrarily chosen but determined
by their having significant relations to the empirical material, relations
564 TRANSITIONS AND REVISIONS

that we seem to sense before we can clearly recognize and demonstrate

them. It is only after more thorough investigation of the field of obser­
vation that we are able to formulate its basic scientific concepts with
increased precision, and progressively so to modify them that they be­
come serviceable and consistent over a wide area. Then, indeed, the
time may have come to confine them in definitions. The advance of
knowledge, however, does not tolerate any rigidity even in definitions.
Physics furnishes an excellent illustration of the way in which even 'basic
concepts' that have been established in the form of definitions are con­
stantly being altered in their content.
A conventional basic concept of this kind, which at the moment is
still somewhat obscure but which is indispensable to us in psychology,
is that of an 'instinct. '1 Let us try to give a content to it by approaching
it from different angles.
First, from the angle of physiology. This has given us the concept of
a 'stimulus' and the pattern of the reflex arc, according to which a
stimulus applied to living tissue (nervous substance) from the outside is
discharged by action to the outside. This action is expedient in so far
as it withdraws the stimulated substance from the influence of the stim­
ulus, removes it out of its range of operation.
What is the relation of 'instinct' to 'stimulus'? There is nothing to
prevent our subsuming the concept of 'instinct' under that of 'stimulus'
and saying that an instinct is a stimulus applied to the mind. But we
are immediately set on our guard against equating instinct and mental
stimulus. There are obviously other stimuli to the mind besides those
of an instinctual kind, stimuli which behave far more like physiological
ones. For example, when a strong light falls on the eye, it is not an
instinctual stimulus; it is one, however, when a dryness of the mucous
membrane of the pharynx or an irritation of the mucous membrane of
the stomach makes itself felt.
We have now obtained the material necessary for distinguishing be­
tween instinctual stimuli and other (physiological) stimuli that operate
on the mind. In the first place, an instinctual stimulus does not arise
from the external world but from within the organism itself. For this
reason it operates differently upon the mind and different actions are
necessary in order to remove it. Further, all that is essential in a stimulus
is covered if we assume that it operates with a single impact, so that it
can be disposed of by a single expedient action. A typical instance of
this is motor flight from the source of stimulation. These impacts may,
of course, be repeated and summated, but that makes no difference to
our notion of the process and to the conditions for the removal of the
stimulus. An instinct, on the other hand, never operates as a force giving

I. ['Trieb' in the original.] {There is much re­ in meaning, to Freud's intentions. Some analysts
spectable psychoanalytic opinion that supports the have compromised by using the term "instinctual
editors' choice of "instinct" for ''Trieb," even drives." In any event, "instinct" and "drive" should
though "drive" is closer linguistically and, I think, be treated as synonyms in this Reader.}
INSTINCTS AND THEIR VICISSITUDES 565

a momentary impact but always as a constant one. Moreover, since it

impinges not from without but from within the organism, no flight can
avail against it. A better term for an instinctual stimulus is a 'need'.
What does away with a need is 'satisfaction'. This can be attained only
by an appropriate ('adequate') alteration of the internal source of
stimulation.
Let us imagine ourselves in the situation of an almost entirely helpless
living organism, as yet unorientated in the world, which is receiving
stimuli in its nervous substance. This organism will very soon be in a
position to make a first distinction and a first orientation. On the one
hand, it will be aware of stimuli which can be avoided by muscular
action (flight); these it ascribes to an external world. On the other hand,
it will also be aware of stimuli against which such action is of no avail
and whose character of constant pressure persists in spite of it; these
stimuli are the signs of an internal world, the evidence of instinctual
needs. The perceptual substance of the living organism will thus have
found in the efficacy of its muscular activity a basis for distinguishing
between an 'outside' and an 'inside'.
We thus arrive at the essential nature of instincts in the first place by
considering their main characteristics-their origin in sources of stim­
ulation within the organism and their appearance as a constant force­
and from this we deduce one of their further features, namely, that no
actions of flight avail against them. In the course of this discussion,
however, we cannot fail to be struck by something that obliges us to
make a further admission. In order to guide us in dealing with the field
of psychological phenomena, we do not merely apply certain conven­
tions to our empirical material as basic concepts; we also make use of a
number of complicated postulates. We have already alluded to the most
important of these, and all we need now do is to state it expressly. This
postulate is of a biological nature, and makes use of the concept of
'purpose' (or perhaps of expediency) and runs as follows: the nervous
system is an apparatus which has the function of getting rid of the stimuli
that reach it, or of reducing them to the lowest possible level; or which,
if it were feasible, would maintain itself in an altogether unstimulated
condition. Let us for the present not take exception to the indefiniteness
of this idea and let us assign to the nervous system the task-speaking
in general terms-of mastering stimuli. We then see how greatly the
simple pattern of the physiological reflex is complicated by the intro­
duction of instincts. External stimuli impose only the single task of
withdrawing from them; this is accomplished by muscular movements,
one of which eventually achieves that aim and thereafter, being the
expedient movement; becomes a hereditary disposition. Instinctual stim­
uli, which originate from within the organism, cannot be dealt with by
this mechanism. Thus they make far higher demands on the nervous
system and cause it to undertake involved and interconnected activities
by which the external world is so changed as to afford satisfaction to the
566 TRANSITIONS AND REVISIONS

internal source of stimulation. Above all, they oblige the nervous system
to renounce its ideal intention of keeping off stimuli, for they maintain
an incessant and unavoidable afflux of stimulation. We may therefore
well conclude that instincts and not external stimuli are the true motive
forces behind the advances that have led the nervous system, with its
unlimited capacities, to its present high level of development. There is
naturally nothing to prevent our supposing that the instincts themselves
are, at least in part, precipitates of the effects of external stimulation,
which in the course of phylogenesis have brought about modifications
in the living substance.
When we further find that the activity of even the most highly de­
veloped mental apparatus is subject to the pleasure principle, i . e. is
automatically regulated by feelings belonging to the pleasure-unpleasure
series, we can hardly reject the further hypothesis that these feelings
reflect the manner in which the process of mastering stimuli takes
place-certainly in the sense that unpleasurable feelings are connected
with an increase and pleasurable feelings with a decrease of stimulus.
We will, h owever, carefully preserve this assumption in its present highly
indefinite form, until we succeed, if that is possible, in discovering what
sort of relation exists between pleasure and unpleasure, on the one hand,
and fluctuations in the amounts of stimulus affecting mental life, on
the other. It is certain that many very various relations of this kind, and
not very simple ones, are possible.
If now we apply ourselves to considering mental life from a biological
point of view, an 'instinct' appears to us as a concept on the frontier
between the mental and the somatic, as the psychical representative of
the stimuli originating from within the organism and reaching the mind,
as a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in conse­
quence of its connection with the body.

We are now in a position to discuss certain terms which are used in

reference to the concept of an instinct-for example, its 'pressure', its
'aim', its 'object' and its 'source'.
By the pressure [Drang] of an instinct we understand its motor factor,
the amount of force or the measure of the demand for work which it
represents. The characteristic of exercising pressure is common to all
instincts; it is in fact their very essence. Every instinct is a piece of
activity; if we speak loosely of passive instincts, we can only mean in­
stincts whose aim is passive.
The aim [Ziel] of an instinct is in every instance satisfaction, which
can only be obtained by removing the state of stimulation at the source
of the instinct. But although the ultimate aim of each instinct remains
unchangeable, there may yet be different paths leading to the same
ultimate aim; so that an instinct may be found to have various nearer
or intermediate aims, which are combined or interchanged with one
another. Experience permits us also to speak of instincts which are
INSTINCTS AND THEIR VICISSITUDES 567

'inhibited in their aim', in the case of processes which are allowed to

make some advance towards instinctual satisfaction but are then inhibited
or deflected. We may suppose that even processes of this kind involve
a partial satisfaction.
The object [Obfekt] of an instinct is the thing in regard to which or
through which the instinct is able to achieve its aim. It is what is most
variable about an instinct and is not originally connected with it, but
becomes assigned to it only in consequence of being peculiarly fitted to
make satisfaction possible. The object is not necessarily something ex­
traneous: it may equally well be a part of the subject's own body. It may
be changed any number of times in the course of the vicissitudes which
the instinct undergoes during its existence; and highly important parts
are played by this displacement of instinct. It may happen that the same
object serves for the satisfaction of several instincts simultaneously, a
phenomenon which Adler has called a 'confluence' of instincts [Trieb­
verschriinkung]. A particularly close attachment of the instinct to its
object is distinguished by the term 'fixation'. This frequently occurs at
very early periods of the development of an instinct and puts an end to
its mobility through its intense opposition to detachment.
By the source [Quelle] of an instinct is meant the somatic process
which occurs in an organ or part of the body and whose stimulus is
represented in mental life by an instinct. We do not know whether this
process is invariably of a chemical nature or whether it may also cor­
respond to the release of other, e.g. mechanical, forces. The study of
the sources of instincts lies outside the scope of psychology. Although
instincts are wholly determined by their origin in a somatic source, in
mental life we know them only by their aims. An exact knowledge of
the sources of an instinct is not invariably necessary for purposes of
psychological investigation; sometimes its source may be inferred from
its aim.
Are we to suppose that the different instincts which originate in the
body and operate on the mind are also distinguished by different qual­
ities, and that that is why they behave in qualitatively different ways in
mental life? This supposition does not seem to be justified; we are much
more likely to find the simpler assumption sufficient-that the instincts
are all qualitatively alike and owe the effect they make only to the amount
of excitation they carry, or perhaps, in addition, to certain functions of
that quantity. What distinguishes from one another the mental effects
produced by the various instincts may be traced to the difference in their
sources. * * *

What instincts should we suppose there are, and how many? There
is obviously a wide opportunity here for arbitrary choice. No objection
can be made to anyone's employing the concept of an instinct of play
or of destruction or of gregariousness, when the subject-matter demands
it and the limitations of psychological analysis allow of it. Nevertheless,
568 TRANSITIONS AND REVISIONS

we should not neglect to ask ourselves whether instinctual motives like

these, which are so highly specialized on the one hand, do not admit
of further dissection in accordance wih the sources of the instinct, so
that only primal instincts-those which cannot be further dissected­
can lay claim to importance.
I have proposed that two groups of such primal instincts should be
distinguished: the ego, or self-preservative, instincts and the sexual in­
stincts. But this supposition has not the status of a necessary postulate,
as has, for instance, our assumption about the biological purpose of the
mental apparatus; it is merely a working hypothesis, to be retained only
so long as it proves useful, and it will make little difference to the results
of our work of description and classification if it is replaced by another.
The occasion for this hypothesis arose in the course of the evolution of
psycho-analysis, which was first employed upon the psychoneuroses, or,
more precisely, upon the group described as 'transference neuroses' (hys­
teria and obsessional neurosis); these showed that at the root of all such
affections there is to be found a conflict between the claims of sexuality
and those of the ego. It is always possible that an exhaustive study of
the other neurotic affections (especially of the narcissistic psychoneu­
roses, the schizophrenias) may oblige us to alter this formula and to
make a different classification of the primal instincts. But for the present
we do not know of any such formula, nor have we met with any argument
unfavourable to drawing this contrast between sexual and ego-instincts. 2

We may sum up by saying that the essential feature in the vicissitudes

undergone by instincts lies in the subjection of the instinctual impulses
to the influences of the three great polarities that dominate mental life.
Of these three polarities we might describe that of activity-passivity as
the biological, that of ego-external world as the real, and finally that
of pleasure-unpleasure as the economic polarity.
The instinctual vicissitude of repression will form the subject of an
inquiry which follows.

Repression
Freud was very proud of his discovery of repression. We will recall that in
his "Autobiographical Study he linked it to his analysands' resistance: "The
,"

expenditure of force on the part of the physician was evidently the measure
of a resistance on the part of the patient. It was only necessary to translate
into words what I myself had observed, and I was in possession of the theory
of repression . . . It was a novelty, and nothing like it had ever before been
.

recognized in mental l ife" (see above, p. 1 8). He found the concept so

2. {lbis is precisely what Freud did find it necessary to revise.}