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=Freudian Dictionary=
<blockquote>The forces which we assume to exist behind the tensions caused by the needs of the id are called instincts. They represent the somatic demands upon mental life. Though they are the ultimate cause of all activity, they are by nature conservative; the state, whatever it may be, which a living thing has reached, gives rise to a tendency to re-establish that state so soon as it has been abandoned. It is possible to distinguish an indeterminate number of instincts and in common practice this is in fact done. For us, however, the important question arises whether we may not be able to derive all of these various instincts from a few fundamental ones. We have found that instincts can change their aim (by displacement) and also that they can replace one another-the energy of one instinct passing over to another. This latter process is still insufficiently understood. After long doubts and vacillations we have decided to assume the existence of only two basic instincts.<ref>{{OoPA}} Ch. 2</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>Instinct in general is regarded as a kind of elasticity of living things, an impulsion towards the restoration of a situation which once existed but was brought to an end by some external disturbance.<ref>{{ABS}} Ch. 5</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>An instinct differs from a stimulus in that it arises from sources of stimulation within the body, operates as a constant force, and is such that the subject cannot escape from it by flight as he can from an external stimulus. An instinct may be described as having a source, an object and an aim. The source is a state of excitation within the body, and its aim is to remove that excitation; in the course of its path from its source to the attainment of its aim the instinct becomes operative mentally.<ref>{{NILP}} Ch. 4</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>Observation shows us that an instinct may undergo the following vicissitudes: reversal into its opposite, turning round upon the subject, repression, sublimation.<ref>{{I&V}}</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>By the ''impetus'' of an instinct we understand its motor element, the amount of force or the measure of the demand upon energy which it represents.<BR>
The ''aim'' of an instinct is in every instance satisfaction, which can only be obtained by abolishing the condition of sfimulation in the source of the instinct.<BR>
The ''object'' of an instinct is that in or through which it can achieve its aim.<BR>
By the ''source'' of an instinct is meant that somatic process in an organ or part of the body from which there results a stimulus represented in mental life by an instinct.<ref>{{I&V}}</ref></blockquote>
===Instinct of Aggression===
<blockquote>Fortunately the instincts of aggression are never alone, they are always alloyed with the erotic ones.<ref>{{OoPA}} Ch. 2</ref></blockquote>
===Instincts, Basic===
<blockquote>After long doubts and vacillations we have decided to assume the existence of only two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct.<ref>{{OoPA}} Ch. 2</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>There can be no question of restricting one or the other of the basic instincts to a single region of the mind. They are necessarily present everywhere. We may picture an initial state of things by supposing that the whole available energy of Eros, to which we shall henceforward give the name of libido, is present in the as yet undifferentiated ego-id and serves to neutralize the destructive impulses which are simultaneously present. (There is no term analogous to "libido" for describing the energy of the destructive instinct.)<ref>{{OoPA}} Ch. 2</ref></blockquote>
===Instinct, Sexual===
<blockquote>The sexual instincts are remarkable for their plasticity, for the facility with which they can change their aims, for their interchangeability-for the ease with which they can substitute one form of gratification for another, and for the way in which they can be held in suspense, as has been so well illustrated by the aim-inhibited instincts.<ref>{{NILP}} Ch. 4</ref></blockquote>
===Instinctual Demands as Traumas===
<blockquote>Instinctual demands from within operate as "traumas" no less than excitations from the external world, especially if they are met halfway by certain dispositions.<ref>{{CoPA}} Ch. 7</ref></blockquote>
===Instinctual Situation===
<blockquote>Frightening instinctual situations can in the last resort be traced back to external situations of danger.<ref>{{NILP}} Ch. 4</ref></blockquote>
{{Freudian Dictionary}}
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