Libido

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In psychoanalysis, the term "libido" is used to describe a mental -- psychic and emotional -- energy associated with instinctual biological drives.


Sexual Desire

From the Latin word for "desire" or "lust," libido is a specifically sexual energy.

A distinction is made by Freud between the sexual or libidinal drives and the self-preservation or ego drives.

One of the major soruces of the disagreement between Freud and Jung is the later's tendency to desexualize the concept of libido and to dissolve it into a more general category of mental energy.


Sigmund Freud

The term "libido" was introduced into psychoanalytic theory by Freud.

Freud often employs metaphors from the science of hydraulics to describe libido.

It is said to be quantifiable, plastic and adhesive, and cna be attached to or withdrawn from objects thanks to the mechanism of cathexis.

It can be desexualized or used in sublimation.


Freud conceives of the libido as a quantitative (or "economic") concept: it is an energy which can increase or descrease, and which can be displaced.[1]

Freud insisted on the sexual nature of this energy, and throughout his work he maintained a dualism in which the libido is opposed to another (non-sexual) form of energy.

Carl Jung

Jung opposed this dualism, positing a single form of life-energy which is neutral in character, and proposed that this energy be denoted by the term "libido."

Jacques Lacan

Lacan uses the term 'libido' very sparingly, and tends to discuss sexuality in terms of desire and jouissance.

Lacan rejects Jung's monism and reaffirms Freud's dualism.[2]

He argues, with Freud, that the libido is exclusively sexual.

Lacan also follows Freud in affirming that the libido is exclusively masculine.[3]

"Libido and the ego are on the same side. Narcissism is libidinal."[4]

From 1964 on, however, there is a shift to articulating the libido more with the real.[5]

However, in general Lacan does not use the term "libido" anywhere near as frequently as Freud, preferring to reconceptualize sexual energy in terms of jouissance.

See Also

References

  1. Freud, Sigmund. SE XVIII. 1921c. p.90.
  2. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p.119-20
  3. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.291
  4. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.326
  5. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.848-9