Sigmund Freud, libido goes beyond the sexual

The conception that most people have about libido is very reductionist, restricting the term to its most basic interpretation. sexual. However, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, treated this term in a very different way. Referring to libido, he spoke of a much broader concept that goes beyond what we currently know.

Freud defined libido as that energy that comes from drives or instincts and that affects our behavior. directing it. Given this, he differentiated between two types of drives: the life drive and the death drive.

The life drive referred to all those impulses that have to do with affects or emotions. Those that invite us to fall in love and reproduce, to connect with other people. Freud said that this could be associated with what he defined as “It” or the “I”, two terms that we will explain later.

On the other hand, we have the death drive understood as that which is opposed to life or which represents some wear and tear on it. Here we find those patterns of repetition that invite us to stumble over the same stone. This would be characterized, for example, when we fall in love with the same type of people who end up hurting us.

Libido and pleasure

Although libido and sexual pleasure are something that we easily relate, the truth is that For Freud, pleasure goes beyond. For example, isn’t it true that we can feel pleasure when drinking water after being thirsty? Don’t we feel pleasure when we taste a delicious dessert? And when we warm ourselves by the heat of a bonfire in winter?

Well, Freud in this regard stated that libido was present in what he defined as Ego, Superego and It. The pleasure principle is found in the It or what we can consider as immediate pleasure. It is a part that unconsciously directs our behavior in search of that delight. For example, if I’m thirsty I’ll go get a cold beer.

Besides, The Ego contains the energy of the libido of the It. However, he is responsible for achieving pleasure, always taking reality into account. At this point the environment comes into play, as well as the prevailing norms and rules. Continuing with the previous example, I might fancy a beer, but maybe choose a non-alcoholic one because it’s healthier.

Finally, The Superego is similar to the Ego, although it gives great importance to morality. In this way, all the norms and values ​​that reside in society and that are learned through contact and interaction with other people are deeply internalized. In the case of the example, I could feel guilty because drinking alcohol outside of a social and festive context is not very well regarded by society. I may have internalized that vision and felt guilty.

The stages of psychosexual development

For Freud, libido is also present in the different stages of human development., but in a different way. That is, libido is expressed in a different way depending on the stage of development in which we find ourselves.

Oral phase: pleasure is obtained through the mouth. Anal phase: the sphincter and defecation are controlled, an activity linked to pleasure and sexuality. Phallic phase: pleasure is obtained when urinating, thanks to the pleasurable sensation it produces. Phase latency: modesty and shame appear, related to sexuality. Genital phase: the arrival of puberty and sexual maturity.

However, according to Freud, libido sometimes stagnates, that is, it does not follow its natural flow. This occurs when there is some type of fixation that prevents everything from continuing to progress as it should. For example, if we cling to obtaining pleasure through the mouth in the oral phase, it will be very difficult for us to leave it behind to fully immerse ourselves in the next phase.

Plasticity and Viscosity

The psychoanalyst Jean Lapanche highlights that Freud assigned two basic characteristics to the libido: plasticity and viscosity.

Plasticity. Its characteristic is the ability of the libido to change more or less easily from object to mode of satisfaction.Goo. Viscosity refers to the greater or lesser capacity of the libido to cling to an object or a phase and its difficulty in changing this clinging once they have occurred.

Conclusion

As we have seen, the father of psychoanalysis did not conceive of libido as we do today. For him it was not just a desire to obtain sexual pleasure. But that pleasure was implicit in other areas of our life and, furthermore, in a normative way it progresses as we go through the different stages of our psychosexual development.

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