Drive
In psychoanalytic theory, the Drive (French: pulsion; German: Trieb) refers to a bodily-rooted yet psychically structured force that shapes the subject’s relation to desire, enjoyment (jouissance), and the unconscious. Unlike biological instincts (Instinkte), which are oriented toward specific objects and aim at satisfaction, drives (Triebe) are characterized by their repetitiveness, lack of natural object, and insertion into the symbolic order.
Originally formulated by Sigmund Freud and later reworked extensively by Jacques Lacan, the drive is central to understanding subjectivity, symptom formation, and the dynamics of enjoyment.
Freud's Theory of Drive
Freud’s theory of the drive underwent significant development across his career. In his early metapsychological writings, particularly Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915), he defines the drive as:
“a concept on the frontier between the mental and the somatic... the psychical representative of stimuli originating within the organism and reaching the mind” (SE 14: 121).
Unlike instincts, which Freud saw as fixed biological mechanisms, drives are indeterminate, shaped by the psychic and developmental history of the subject.
The Four Characteristics of the Drive
Freud describes the drive as comprising four essential components (SE 14: 122–23):
- Source – a somatic process or bodily excitation in an organ (e.g., lips, anus).
- Aim – the removal of the state of excitation and the attainment of satisfaction.
- Object – the thing or act through which the drive achieves its aim.
- Pressure – the force or motor demand the drive exerts on the psyche.
The object of the drive is not predetermined by biology; it is contingent and substitutable. Drives may become fixated on certain objects or paths, and in cases of symptom formation, these fixations can become rigid.
“The object is not originally connected with the instinct, but becomes assigned to it only in consequence of being peculiarly fitted to make satisfaction possible” (SE 14: 122).
Drive vs. Instinct
Freud draws a strict line between drive and instinct:
- Instinct (e.g. hunger, thirst) is a biological need that can be naturally satisfied.
- Drive, by contrast, exerts a constant internal pressure and does not admit of complete satisfaction. It is marked by its repetitiveness and symbolic elaboration.
“The instincts are conservative, they tend toward the restoration of an earlier state of things” (SE 18: 36).
Libido and Sexuality
Freud posits that drives, especially sexual ones, are underwritten by libido, the “energy” of the sexual drive:
“Libido is an expression of the manifestations of the sexual instincts as a whole” (SE 14: 177).
Human sexuality, for Freud, is composed of multiple partial drives (Partialtriebe) tied to different erogenous zones: oral, anal, phallic, etc. In childhood, these operate in polymorphous, uncoordinated ways. Later, under the influence of the Oedipus complex, these drives may (but not always) be organized under the primacy of genitality (SE 7: 182).
Freud’s Drive Dualism: Life and Death
Over time, Freud revised his model of drive dualism. Initially, he proposed a distinction between:
- Sexual drives (Sexualtriebe)
- Ego or self-preservation drives (Ichtriebe)
But by 1920, with Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he introduces a more radical dualism:
- Eros – the life drive, aiming at unification, binding, and preservation
- Thanatos – the death drive, aiming at undoing, repetition, and return to an inanimate state
“The aim of all life is death” (SE 18: 38).
The death drive is theorized to account for compulsion, destructiveness, and the repetition that exceeds pleasure.
Lacan: Rewriting the Drive
Lacan reinterprets Freud’s theory of the drive by introducing structuralist and linguistic perspectives. In his view, the drive is not a biological force but a symbolic montage, a construction formed through language, fantasy, and the unconscious.
“The drive is not a natural instinct… it is a montage” (Écrits, p. 301).
“Freud defined the drive as a montage composed of four terms: pressure, aim, object, and source” (S11, p. 162).
Lacan insists on the non-biological nature of the drive, emphasizing its symbolic mediation and structural position in the psychic economy.
The Topology of the Drive
In Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Lacan elaborates the circuit of the drive. Unlike an instinct that moves toward discharge, the drive follows a loop, always returning to its origin:
“The drive's aim is not to reach a goal but to follow its aim — to circle around the object” (S11, p. 168).
The true aim of the drive is not satisfaction, but the repetition of the circuit itself, a compulsive return that sustains a form of jouissance — a painful or excessive enjoyment.
“What is at stake in the drive is not the object, but the return to the circuit” (S11, p. 168).
Lacan also situates this circuit within grammatical voices:
- Active – to see
- Reflexive – to see oneself
- Passive – to be seen
Only in the third time (passive voice) does the subject emerge, not as passive but as one who actively positions themselves to be seen — or heard, touched, etc.
5. Partial Drives and Objects
Lacan, like Freud, emphasizes the partial nature of the drives. But he insists that these drives do not integrate into a unified genital function. The “partiality” reflects not just anatomical zones, but the fragmentation of subjectivity.
Lacan identifies four primary partial drives and their corresponding partial objects:
| Drive | Erogenous Zone | Partial Object | Verb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oral drive | Lips | Breast | To suck |
| Anal drive | Anus | Faeces | To excrete |
| Scopic drive | Eyes | Gaze | To see |
| Invocatory drive | Ears | Voice | To hear |
These objects are not whole, self-contained things, but lost objects — remains of what was sacrificed in the subject's entry into language and the Symbolic. They are forms of objet petit a, the cause of desire and the kernel of jouissance.
Drive, Desire, and Jouissance
Drive and desire are closely related, yet distinct:
- Desire is always marked by lack — a metonymic movement around what is missing.
- Drive, by contrast, is repetitive, partial, and tied to jouissance.
As Lacan puts it:
“Desire is one and undivided, whereas the drives are partial manifestations of desire” (S11, p. 189).
The drive’s circular movement is a way for the subject to transgress the pleasure principle and approach the Real — the zone of traumatic, excessive enjoyment.
The Death Drive and Lacan’s Reformulation
Lacan retains Freud’s dualism but reframes it: every drive is a death drive. He writes:
“Every drive is virtually a death drive” (Écrits, p. 848).
This is not because the drive is destructive in content, but because it is repetitive, excessive, and indifferent to symbolic regulation. Lacan rejects the idea of opposing Eros and Thanatos; instead, all drives partake of the Real and express the subject’s division through their compulsive rhythm.
The Drive as Matheme: S ◊ D
In 1957, in the context of the graph of desire, Lacan introduces a matheme for the drive:
S ◊ D
This reads as: the barred subject (S̷) in relation to demand (D) — a subject fading before the insistent repetition of a demand that comes from the Other and has no conscious intention.
The drive, in this sense, is the echo of the Other's demand in the body — a repetitive circuit that structures subjectivity around a lost object.
Clinical Implications
In clinical practice, drives are legible in symptoms, repetitive behaviors, fantasies, and compulsions. The analyst listens not only to what is said, but also to how the subject positions themselves in relation to jouissance, voice, gaze, and repetition.
Symptoms are not simply blockages of drives — they are the forms the drive takes when inscribed within the subject’s symbolic coordinates.
Clinical Implications
Clinically, the drive manifests in symptoms, repetition, fantasy, and compulsion. These are not merely defensive formations, but structural organizations of jouissance. The analyst listens not only for content, but for the form of the drive’s circuit, its vocal modulations, and repetition.
Different clinical structures — neurosis, perversion, and psychosis — reflect different arrangements of drives and their relation to the Symbolic order.
Conclusion
The drive in psychoanalysis is a non-biological, symbolically organized, and repetitive circuit of jouissance, oriented not toward a natural goal, but around a lost object. For Freud, it is a force that disrupts homeostasis and organizes psychic life; for Lacan, it is the very movement of the subject around the void of the Real, and the jouissance that emerges from this movement.
As such, the drive is not to be overcome or resolved in psychoanalysis — but to be traversed, heard, and reinscribed.
See Also
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