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Dualism

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In the [[history ]] of [[religion]], dualism refers to the eighteenth-century doctrines that see God and the devil as two first principles, irreducible and coeternal. [[Christian ]] Wolff (1734/1968) classified dogmatic philosophies into dualistic systems, which separated the soul from the [[body ]] as distinct substances, and monistic systems, both groups [[being ]] distinct from skepticism. In [[anthropology]], [[epistemology]], and [[ethics]], a [[theory ]] is dualistic when two irreducible principles can serve as a foundation for the theory.
From "A [[case ]] of successful [[treatment ]] by [[hypnotism]]" (1892-1893) to his last works, Sigmund [[Freud ]] envisioned [[mental ]] [[processes ]] as resulting from underlying conflicts, fed by opposing forces: "[[Psychoanalysis ]] early became aware that all mental occurrences must be regarded as built on the basis of an interplay of the forces of the elementary [[instincts]]" (1923a). In the first topographic subsystem, these forces arise from the [[sexual ]] instincts in [[conflict ]] with the ego, or [[self]]-preservation, instincts. Later Freud (1914c) said that they arise from the [[object ]] [[libido ]] in conflict with the ego libido, as well as from the pressure of the [[drives]]. In the second topographic subsystem (after 1920), they arise from the [[life ]] and [[death ]] drives. These forces [[structure ]] the [[form ]] and dynamics of the mental processes.
Although Freud emphasized the [[existence ]] of two types of drives in his dualistic approach, he avoids the [[word ]] "dualism." Originating in the body, effecting the [[association ]] of body and [[mind]], and causing [[physical ]] changes (conversion) or [[other ]] types of modifications (other defenses), the drives create a dualistic [[dynamic]], though this is not sufficient for saying that [[psychoanalytic ]] theory is dualistic.
As Freud's research evolved, the essential polarities and the [[role ]] of [[instinctual ]] dualism changed as well. When studying the [[transference ]] [[neuroses]], Freud postulated an "opposition between the '[[sexual impulses]]' directed toward the object and other impulses that we can only [[identify ]] imperfectly and temporarily designate with the [[name ]] 'ego instincts' " Freud noted the concordance with the opposition between hunger and [[love]]. He added, "In the forefront of these instincts, we must recognize the instincts that serve for the preservation of the [[individual]]" (1920g). In the first topographic subsystem, these forces arising from instincts were like vectors applied to quasi points ([[unconscious ]] representations). In this way they resembled the [[structures ]] of classical [[physics ]] (Freud, 1899a).
Freud's introduction, between 1911 and 1915, of [[narcissism]], of the ego as [[agency]], of transference (rather than [[phenomenological ]] transfer), and of a series of correlative [[terms ]] of considerable scope shows his [[dissatisfaction ]] with the former dynamic [[system]]. Freud then insisted that antagonistic forces account for morphogenesis, stabilization, and the evolution (in modern terms, [[structural ]] [[stability]]) of large irreducible structures such as the ego, the ego [[ideal]], and certain identifications.
After a period of confusion when Freud replaced the dynamics of conflict with the opposition between object libido and ego, together with the pressure of the [[drive]], Freud proposed the dualism of the life and [[death drives]]. A chiasma was introduced, since the sex drive, a disturbing toxic force in the first topographic subsystem, was now integrated in the [[life drive ]] (germen), while the ego instincts (soma) were partially integrated in the [[death drive]]. The difficulty that this chiasma creates can be resolved by assuming that the new dualism, which is more comprehensive, resolves conflicts between tendencies with different degrees of stability. The ego affects its own immediate stability by conflicting with the expression of [[sexuality]], which forces the ego to [[change]]. The sexual drive is directed, in the last [[instance]], at the long-term structural stability of the [[species]].
Drive dualism correlates with a [[number ]] of conflicts. These include the polarities of mental life: the [[economic ]] polarity of [[pleasure ]] and [[unpleasure]], the [[reality ]] polarities of the ego and the [[outside ]] [[world]], the [[biological ]] polarities of [[activity ]] and [[passivity]]. This last pair introduces the polarities around which the contrasts between the [[sexes ]] develop: [[active]]/passive, [[phallic]]/nonphallic, [[masculine]]/feminine. In [[ambivalence ]] there is movement between love and [[hate]], and ultimately between the life and death drives; or between the pleasure [[principle ]] and the reality (formerly constancy) principle, and ultimately between the life and death drives.
The dualism of the life and death drives has often been rejected or poorly [[understood]]. It has been [[interpreted ]] in an exclusively realist [[sense ]] (Melanie [[Klein ]] and the [[Paris ]] [[school ]] of psychosomatics) even though there was also a [[theoretical ]] component. The [[repetition ]] [[compulsion ]] and death drive have been unilaterally interpreted as nondynamic structural formalisms. Freud's requirements for drive theory involve dynamically accounting for the simple stability that repetition implies (for example, in [[symptoms]]) while taking into account the structural stability (always deviating in the same way) that the majority of mental structures implement. "But," according to Freud (1920g), "in no region of [[psychology ]] were we groping more in the dark [than in the case of the drives]." Only Gustav Fechner and his hypotheses of stability were of use to Freud. Contemporary dynamicists provide more refined instruments for plumbing the depths of [[Freudian ]] drive dualism while respecting its preconditions.
MICHÈLE PORTE
See also: Ambivalence; Beyond the [[Pleasure Principle]]; [[Demand]]; [[Destrudo]]; Ego-[[instinct]]; Fusion/defusion of instincts; Libido; [[Life instinct ]] ([[Eros]]); Monism; Psychology of [[Women]]. The, A Psychoanalytic [[Interpretation]], The; [[Psychosomatic ]] [[limit]]/boundary.[[Bibliography]]
* Freud, Sigmund. (1892-1893). A case of successful treatment by hypnotism. SE, 1: 115-128.
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