Beyond the Pleasure Principle

“The impressions that underlie the hypothesis of the pleasure principle are so obvious that they can scarcely be overlooked.”

Freud opens his rhetorical argument with a confident assertion of his own theory. He argues that the pleasure principle is an unmitigated fact that has been proven repeatedly through clinical observation. This bold claim stands in opposition to how Freud’s emphasis on libido and pleasure-seeking was viewed by some of his closest contemporaries at the time.

“It must be pointed out, however, that strictly speaking it is incorrect to talk of the dominance of the pleasure principle over the course of mental processes.”

Here, Freud diverges from his previous work by shifting away from a singular focus on the pleasure principle. This hints at his later development of the theme of The Compulsion for Life and Death, which explores how both instincts for creation and destruction motivate human behavior.

“Under the influence of the ego’s instincts of self-preservation, the pleasure principle is replaced by the reality principle.”

In The Moderation of Pleasure and Reality, equilibrium continues to be of the utmost importance. The pleasure principle is moderated by what Freud refers to as the “reality principle,” the need for the ego to monitor the drives of the id to align with the expectations and norms of society translated through the ego. Both forces play an important role in mental processes.

“In the case of the ordinary traumatic neuroses two characteristics emerge prominently: first, that the chief weight in their causation seems to rest upon the factor of surprise, or fright; and secondly, that a wound or injury inflicted simultaneously works as a rule against the development of a neurosis.”

Freud’s work had profound implications for the study of Trauma and the Unconscious. He asserts that trauma is internalized when the psychic energy caused by external stimuli has no outlet. If there is no injury or outward expression of the trauma, the mind engages in a repetitive compulsion to manage the excess energy.

“The study of dreams may be considered the most trustworthy method of investigating deep mental processes.”

Freud argues that dreams provide powerful insight into the workings of the id. He uses dreams to uncover the repressed and hidden desires of the id. However, the psychoanalyst proposes that trauma is so repressed that it requires treatment with a skilled physician to bring it into consciousness.

“The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it.”

The idea that a repressed memory or trauma holds the key to unlocking neuroses and repetitive compulsion dominated psychoanalysis for years following Freud’s work. It continues to influence work in mental health treatment and recovery through processes like talk therapy.

“Resistance during treatment arises from the same higher strata and systems of the mind which originally carried out repression.”

Freud proposes that the ego is the reason for repressed trauma. In an effort to maintain the balance of forces of id and the superego, the ego can cause neuroses by repeatedly repressing internal drives. Furthermore, the psyche constantly seeks equilibrium through The Moderation of Pleasure and Reality, and the excess energy caused by trauma threatens this balance, creating a need for repression and repetition.

“Patients repeat all of these unwanted situations and painful emotions in the transference and revive them with the greatest ingenuity.”

Trauma can manifest repeatedly in dreams and in lived experiences. Freud suggests that in doing so, the trauma maintains a present status in the human psyche. The only way to eradicate the negative effects of trauma is to bring it into consciousness and examine it.

“They are of course the activities of instincts intended to lead to satisfaction; but no lesson has been learnt from the old experience of these activities having led instead only to pleasure.”

Here, Freud draws a distinction between a drive for pleasure and a drive for satisfaction, explaining the compulsion of repetition that emerges from traumatic experience. He argues that repetitive behavior is an attempt to achieve psychic balance by creating an anxiety where the excess energy can be funneled.

“What follows is speculation, often far-fetched speculation, which the reader will consider or dismiss according to his individual predilection. It is further an attempt to follow out an idea consistently.”

This sentence marks a dividing line between the first three sections of the essay and the rest. In the first sections, Freud outlines his earlier theories about the pleasure principle and its interaction with the ego and superego, arguing that these are fundamental truths that must be understood in psychoanalysis for further exploration to occur. The speculation of the final sections seeks an answer to the hidden forces aside from the pleasure principle that drive human motivation.

“If they remained constantly conscious, they would very soon set limits to the system’s aptitude for receiving fresh excitations.”

Freud carries his theory of balance into all areas of his inquiry. He argues that both the unconscious and conscious are necessary for regulating the volume of external stimuli that individuals contend with daily. He presents a thought experiment to show what would happen if the balance of these two systems did not help with The Moderation of Pleasure and Reality.

“A particular way is adopted of dealing with any internal excitations which produce too great an increase of unpleasure: there is a tendency to treat them as though they were acting, not from the inside, but from the outside.”

This passage helps to define trauma as the processing and embedding of internal reactions to stimuli in the unconscious. Freud asserts that because an individual may not have an outward representation of a trauma response, the need to respond manifests through neuroses and repetitive compulsions.

“These dreams are endeavoring to master the stimulus retrospectively, by developing the anxiety whose omission was the cause of the traumatic neurosis.”

Dreams represent one place in which Trauma and the Unconscious play out the need for equilibrium. The dream keeps the trauma in the present and cycles through the excess energy that has nowhere to seek release.

“The most abundant sources of this internal excitation are what are described as the organism’s ‘instincts’—the representatives of all the forces originating in the interior of the body and transmitted to the mental apparatus.”

Freud turns his attention to the internal drives that motivate human behavior and how these interact and connect to trauma. These forces, such as Eros and Thanatos in the theme The Compulsion for Life and Death, impact the mind and human behavior.

“The manifestations of a compulsion to repeat […] exhibit to a high degree an instinctual character and, when they act in opposition to the pleasure principle, give the appearance of some daemonic force at work.”

Freud reminds his readers that the compulsion to repeat is not only tied to either pleasure or unpleasure, life or death. It is about the need to maintain equilibrium. To an outsider, the repetitive compulsion can appear strange and alarming, but Freud maintains that it is a natural and instinctual part of both trauma-processing and pleasure-seeking.

“It seems, then, that an instinct is an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things.”

The theory of the drive for equilibrium is expanded to mean that all living organisms have an inherent internal drive to return to their former state of being. Freud follows this thread until he determines that they ultimately seek the inorganic state. This forms the basis for Freud’s ideas about Thanatos as an innate death drive.

“If we are to take it as a truth that knows no exception that everything living dies for internal reasons—becomes inorganic once again—then we shall be compelled to say that ‘the aim of all life is death.’”

The Compulsion for Life and Death means that two opposing forces are constantly creating tension in the psyche. Although Freud later explains that he is not entirely convinced by his own speculation, he believes that the notion that humans are driven by both Eros and Thanatos is correct.

“The instinctual forces which seek to conduct life into death may also be operating in protozoa from the first.”

The psychoanalyst dismisses arguments that humans are somehow above other living organisms or that they have different drives. He addresses an argument that humans have a singular drive toward development that is unique only to their species. Instead, Freud proposes that the compulsion for life and death is instinctual to all living things, even single-celled organisms.

“Our argument had as its point of departure a sharp distinction between ego-instincts, which we equated with death instincts, and sexual instincts, which we equated with life instincts.”

Freud is not ready to abandon the importance of sexual libido in human behavior and motivation. He argues that libido is part of Eros and the internal drive for creation and reproduction. The pleasure principle plays a role in both Eros and Thanatos, revealing how important both are to human experience.

“In the obscurity that reigns at present in the theory of the instincts, it would be unwise to reject any idea that promises to throw lite on it.”

Freud’s repeated assertion that his arguments in the final sections may not be complete and that researchers should maintain an open mind offers a sharp juxtaposition to the opening sections of Freud’s essay. Here, he proposes that it is important to consider any possibility, no matter how far-fetched the ideologies may seem.

“My answer would be that I am not convinced myself and that I do not seek to persuade other people to believe in them. Or, more precisely, that I do not know how far I believe in them.”

Here, Freud provides another example of his shift in tone. He confesses that even he is not fully convinced by his own speculation. However, he emphasizes that it is important to follow questions through to their logical conclusions and to continue to evolve one’s theories.

“If it is really the case that seeking to restore an earlier state of things is such a universal characteristic of instincts, we need not be surprised that so many processes take place in mental life independently of the pleasure principle.”

As a bookend to the first section, which promotes the inherent nature of the pleasure principle and its profound impact on human life, Freud asserts in the closing section that it is one part of a complex web of motivations that exists within Eros and Thanatos. The return to an earlier state is a part of both life and death drives and is directly related to an innate movement toward balance.

“The pleasure principle seems actually to serve the death instincts.”

This brief remark contradicts Freud’s earlier argument that the pleasure principle belongs to Eros because it is concerned with sexual libido and the drive for reproduction Here, however, Freud shows how the pleasure principle also plays a role in the death drive. The pleasure received from destruction and violence is part of what makes the death drive such a palpable influence on the human experience.