THE LIBIDO CONCEPT

ILSE FOREST, PH.D.

Brookhn College, New York

T HE concept of the ‘libido’ is pivotal to the Freudian theory, since libid-

inal energy is the very dynamic of personality growth. Subjectively,
that is, of itself, libido is desire, striving, the fundamental interest in life.
Objective&, it is a kind of free-floating power investing the objects in the en-
vironment with color and desirability for the organism. When libido is with-
drawn, the once loved object becomes colorless and undesirable, therefore
wholly unloved. Thus both subjectively and objectively libido is concerned
with the preservation and enhancement of life. Stirring within the self, it
both creates desire and strives for the satisfaction of desire. An utterly dis-
interested infant, for instance, would simply starve to death.
Libido was variously described by Freud. The opening paragraph of his
Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, reads: “The fact of sexual need in
man and animal is expressed in biology by the assumption of a ‘sexual in-
stinct’. This impulse is made analogous to the impulse of taking nourishment
and to hunger. The sexual expression corresponding to hunger not being
found colloquially, science uses the expression ‘libido’ ” (1).l Clearly, accord-
ing to this statement, libido is sexual desire as it is commonly understood.
Later in the same publication, libido is defined as “a force of variable quan-
tity which has the capacity of measuring processes and transformations in
the sphere of sexual excitement.” Here, too, Freud definitely separates
“libidinous from other psychic energy,” on the theory that “the sexual pro-
cesses of the organism are differentiated from the nutritional processes
through a special chemism.”
During his long experience in analysis, Freud’s theory of the libido under-
went considerable modification. He found that libidinal energy could not be
identified exclusively with strictly sexual instincts, and also found it nec-
essary to give the term ‘sexuality’ a meaning broader than the colloquial one.
In his initial view of personality, the sexual or libidinal instincts form one
group, and the ego or self-preservative instincts, of which hunger is typical,
another. At this period of his work he also believed that he had found ‘‘a
clearer connection between sexual instincts and phantasy, and on the other
hand between ego instincts and consciousness” (2). The psychological differ-
ences between the two groups he attributed to the delayed ‘mental develop-
ment’ of the sexual urges. This delayed development. H e in turn explained
on the basis of their autoerotic (subjectively pleasurable) character and sub-
jection to severe repression during the latency period of childhood. Freu d
argued that instincts so subjective in their pleasurable quality would natu-
Moll used the term libido in the sense of sexual drive in 1898.
700
 ILSE FOREST 701

rally be accompanied by lively fantasy, unchecked by objective standards;

and because they are so severely repressed as to be forced into the unconscious
during later childhood, sexual impulses are ips0 fact0 immune from the
criticism of consciousness.
In his article (3) On Narcissism, published in 1914, Freud defended the
hypothesis of “a primordial differentiation between sexual instincts and
other instincts, ego instincts” on three main grounds: 1) Such a distinction
corresponds roughly to the generally recognized one between hunger and
love. 2) The individual carries on “a double existence, one designed to serve
his own purposes and the other as a link in a chain,” and the distinction be-
tween ego and sex instincts therefore corresponds to this double function.
3) Finally, he believed that “all our provisional ideas in psychology will some
day be based on an organic structure. This makes it possible that special
substances control the operation of sexuality. . . .”
Freud’s further studies of neurotic patients, however, revealed the pres-
ence of libidinal impulses within the ego itself. As he progressed in the study
of the ego, he found that there exists within the self a far more fundamental
opposition than that between the ego and sex. Psychoanalysis showed with
ever increasing clarity the presence within the living organism of death
impulses as well as urges toward fuller life. This discovery stimulated Freud
to attempt the development of a far more adequate theory of the nature of
instinct itself than the one from which he had been working.
The dream material of patients suffering from traumatic or “shock”
neuroses directed him toward his most fruitful hypothesis. H e found that
such patients consistently reverted in their dreams to the terrifying or pain-
ful circumstances which initiated their illness (4). With striking fidelity the
dream fantasy reproduced these circumstances, even though in his waking
hours the patient made every effort to obliterate them from his mind. Now
the theory of dreams which Freud had come to hold axiomatic stated that
dreams are essentially wishful activity, and that the fantastic happenings
which they portray represent “wish-fulfillment.” Thus there seemed to be
something oddly contradictory about the dreams of the shock neurosis:
consciously the patient wished to forget his past tragedy, but unconsciously,
as his dreams showed, he wished to relive it. Another point calling for ex-
planation, if the original theory of dreams was to hold, was how the personal-
ity could “wish” anything painful. For “In the psychoanalytic theory of
mind we take it for granted that the course of mental processes is automati-
cally regulated by the pleasure principle.”
The hypothesis Freud adopted to reconcile these apparent contradictions
with his earlier theory is that “beyond the pleasure principle” there is an
unconscious mental activity, far more basic and archaic than this principle
itself. This mental activity is identified with an instinct which, in opposition
to the instinct for pleasure and life, leads backward toward darkness and
702 THE LIBIDO CONCEPT

death, backward from the organic to the inorganic stage of existence, through
the regressive reinstatement of earlier conditions. H e believed that he found
confirmation of his hypothesis regarding a death impulse in the play of chil-
dren. It is a familiar fact that the little child dramatizes the events of his daily
life, and these dramatizations are by no means limited to activities which are
pleasurable. If the child goes to the doctor for an examination or is hospital-
ized for some reason, he usually plays ‘doctor’ and ‘hospital’ for a long time
thereafter, even when his experiences have been unpleasant and painful.
During the recent war terrifying experiences were dramatized constantly
both by children who had actually endured them and those who merely
dreaded them. Freud gave as an example of this childhood tendency the case
of a child whose mother left him every day in the care of others while she
went to work. The child occupied his time during her absence by hiding his
playthings which had to be ‘found’ in the evening; he was dramatizing going
away and coming back. While admitting that imitation accounts for many of
the play activities of children, Freud nevertheless believed it to be a super-
ficial element in play behavior. In the case of the little boy who dramatized
going away and coming back, he admitted that hiding the toys might also be
a bit of aggressive behavior, designed to get even with mother for leaving
him. But he nevertheless insisted that the underlying motive for this child’s
dramatization and other more superficially imitative dramatic play must be
sought in the tendency to go back, relive; i.e., reinstate an earlier condition,
pleasant or unpleasant. He concluded from his observations that “even under
the domination of the pleasure principle, there are always ways and means of
making what is in itself disagreeable the object of memory and of psychic
preoccupation” (5).
Having established to his satisfaction the existence of two classes of in-
stincts, one directed toward progress and life, the other toward retrogression
and death, Freud proceeded to identify these respectively with the two an-
tagonistic processes of physiological development, anabolism and katab-
olism ( 5 ) ; and further described them as Eros or sexual instincts, and death
instincts. The energy of the Eros or sexual instincts is the libido, and in his
later writings Freud was careful to insist that the libido is not sexual instinct
in the narrow sense intended by the opening paragraph of Three Contributions
to the Theory of Sex. His investigations had led him to the conclusion that the
libido is the essentially positive urge toward life which expresses itself not
only in sexual activity, but in every outgoing ‘loving’ or creative tendency-
In 1922 he wrote, “The name ‘libido’ in psychoanalysis is not the sexual drive
only, but the very driving force of the sexual drives” (6). At the same time
Freud came to think of all outgoing activity as ‘sexual’ because it was the
activity of the Eros and the opponent of the death instincts.
The libidinal tendencies, being overt in character, early yielded to analytic
study, while the death instincts remained correspondingly hidden and ob-
 ILSE FOREST 703

scure. Only after prolonged psychoanalytic experience did Freud reach what
he believed to be an understanding of them. The observation of the sadistic
impulse furnished him with what he considered to be his first clear insight.
H e decided that sadism was simply a death impulse, an urge to destruction,
turned against the external world instead of the self; in his own words,
“pressed into the service of the ego” (7). If a ‘death impulse’ could be em-
ployed by the ego for its own ends, it became apparent that the life instinct
and the death instinct are not always and ultimately antagonistic. Freud
believed he had shown the death instinct to be more archaic and fundamental
than the urge to live, since it seemed capable of defying the pleasure prin-
ciple itself.
Death means the cessation of tension, a return to the equilibrium of
inorganic existence which is actually disturbed by the appearance of life.
Yet life itself aims at satisfaction through the release o f tension. Hunger, for
instance, creates tension in the organism of the new born baby which is re-
lieved by the pleasurable activity of taking nourishment. Without this
tension and libidinal craving which both creates and relieves it, the child
would obviously die. But in relieving tension and restoring equilibrium,
hunger and all other libidinal strivings lead toward death (cessation of ten-
sion, the equilibrium of inorganic existence) as certainly as the death im-
pulses themselves, although by a circuitous path rather than a direct one.
So, Freud concludes, life instincts and death instincts have a common goal;
and instinct, whether for life or death, may be defined as “a tendency in
living organic matter impelling it toward the reinstatement of an earlier
condition” (4).Thus the painful dreams of the neurotic are explained in terms
of wish fulfillment-the fundamental drive of living matter to return, and
finally to return to its original state of inorganic equilibrium.
Personality as we know and understand it develops in the course of the uni-
versal conflict between life and death impulses. The newborn child is a person
in embryo only. H e begins life possessed solely of phylogenetic traits, his
qualities are not the qualities of John Smith, but rather those ofgenus homo.
The reservoir of these phylogenetic traits Freud described as the id (das Es)
which is lawless, timeless, without order, without direction, and therefore
utterly ignorant of contradiction. Like Schopenhauer’s blind will, it can
neither think nor act, it can only wish.
The id is the original repository of the libido, which stirs within it, creating
and relieving the tension which is life. At first the libidinal “interest” of the
organism is entirely bound up with what may be called internal events; sen-
sations from all parts of the body which introduce the tensions which libid-
dinal activity relieves. This situation soon changes, for practically from the
instant of birth external events begin to affect the organism, and to change
and modify a part of the id into that public self which we know as the ego.
This ego shortly begins to bring the results of its perceptual experience to
704 THE LIBIDO CONCEPT

bear upon the purely internal, the ‘wish’ activity of the id. Saying it another
way, the ego represents an organization of desire in response to the demands
of the external world. For perceptual activity introduces a new principle of
mental operation-the reality principle in distinction from the pleasure prin-
ciple. The ego, as the ‘educated’ part of the id, has the task of modifying the
pleasure principle which, figuratively speaking, enjoys free rein so far as the
id is concerned to meet the requirements of a newly recognized reality.
During the period of infancy, when the id is dominant and the ego scarcely
developed, the libido obeys the id’s fantastic wishes and attaches itself to any
and all pleasurable objects, investing them with interest and thus forming
what Freud termed “object cathexes.” H e explains cathexis at length: “Any
attempt a t a short definition or description is likely to be misleading, but
speaking very loosely, we may say that ‘cathexis’is used on the analogy of an
electric charge, and that it means the concentration or accumulation of men-
tal energy in some particular channel. Thus when we speak of the existence
in someone of a libidinal cathexis of an object, or of an object cathexis, we
mean that his libidinal energy is directed towards, or rather infused into, the
idea (Yorstellung) of some object in the outer world” (8).
‘Cathexis’ is taken from the Greek ‘I occupy.’ I t has been explained a t such
length here because it will be an important term throughout the discussion
of child development. The ego subjects the id’s early object cathexes to criti-
cism: some of them it accepts, others it rejects and represses. The libido be-
longing to the repressed object-cathexes returns to the id: the libido belong-
ing to the accepted objects is retained by the ego, and in this way what was
once ‘object-libido’ becomes ‘ego libido.’ Having once appropriated this ‘ob-
ject libido,’ the ego holds itself up to the id and says, in effect, “Look, I am
so like the object, you may as well love me” (5,’p. 37).
The last part of this explanation might be paraphrased by saying that the
ego, decked out with object libido, poses before the id as an object. I n order to
manage this, and so get some influence over the id, the ego must make some
compromises, permitting the id to keep certain of its primitive object choices,
and allowing these to continue side by side with the ego’s own objects-
Freud believed the nature of personality to be profoundly affected by the
ego’s object choices, and suggested that certain pathological phenomena, for
instance, multiple personality, are traceable in individual cases to these
choices. He asserts that in dual or multiple personality “mutually incompat-
ible choices in turn seize possession of consciousness.” In his essay, Mourning
and Melancholia (9), melancholia is traced to a catastrophe in connection
with an ego object. In such cases, Freud submitted, there once existed a
strongly established identification between the ego and another person, ,”;
relationship subsequently broken by real or fancied injury. i identification^
he explained, “is known to psychoanalysis as the earliest expression of.an
emotional tie with another person” (8, p. 60). When the break occurs, libido
 ILSE FOREST 705

is withdrawn from the object into the ego and is not transferred in normal
fashion to another object. Instead, the identification is intensified; the very
faults of the beloved person are taken upon the ego’s own self. So, Freud
argues, the self-reproaches of the melancholic are actually disguised re-
proaches against the once loved ‘other,’ whose traits have been shifted to the
patient’s own ego. In such cases “the shadow of the object fell upon the ego,
so that the latter could henceforth be criticized by a special mental faculty
like a n object, like the f o r s a k e n object.”
In the personality development of every child, the struggle of the ego to
maintain control of libidinal energy, to effect a compromise between the id
and the reality principle, is greatly influenced by the people who surround
him. Through his contacts with others, the child gradually forms for himself a
superego, or ego ideal. This ideal is the product of praise and blame, of per-
mission and prohibition, of affection and discipline. Naturally, parents or
those who stand in the place of parents exert a crucial influence upon the
character of the superego. Freud said that behind the ego-ideal “there lies
hidden the first and most important identification of all, the identification
with the father, which takes place in the pre-history of every person” ( 5 ) . To
this statement he added “Perhaps it would be safer to say with the parents”
(rather than with the father only) for before the child arrives at definite
knowledge of the difference between the sexes, the missing penis, it does not
distinguish in value between its father and its mother. This identification is
direct and immediate and prior to any object-cathexis” (10).
Freud held that people fall into three main classes according to what hap-
pens to the libido in the course of the ego’s efforts a t sublimation, or redirec-
tion of libidinal energy. There is first the erotic type, represented by those
who gain most of their satisfactions through loving and being loved, particu-
larly through the passive phase of being loved. In such personalities, the
transformation of object-libido into ego-libido has done little violence to the
libido’s original character. They remain throughout life very dependent upon
those who have the power to give or withhold love. In contrast to the “erotic”
is the “compulsion” type of personality. In these latter, the superego is espe-
cially tyrannical and strong; they are therefore emotionally inhibited in the ’
usual sense of this expression and tend to be tormented by conscience. A
third personality according to the present classification is the “narcissistic.”
In this type there is little or no cleavage between the ego and the superego; in
fact, Freud said that he would never have come upon the existence of a super-
ego had he studied these people exclusively. The narcissistic personality is
frequently associated with qualities of leadership. Although such individuals
sometimes arise to defend the status quo, on the whole, change and progress are
wrought by narcissistic characters in whom object-libido has been quite com-
pletely converted into ego-libido, and whose libidinal energy, sublimated with
little or no loss, has been directed toward useful ends in the external world.
 706 ThE LIBIDO CONCEPT

Thus the character achieved by each developing human being, according

to Freudian theory, depends upon the outcome of the struggle between the
ego and the id. The product of this struggle is the public self, the self known
to others. There has been a tendency since Kant both in philosophy and psy-
chology to minimize the “individuality” of the person. According to the
teachings of contemporary philosophy and psychology, we greatly exagger-
ate our own precious individuality. Each of us is what he is; first, because he
is a member ofgenus homo; second because he is in part the product of a par-
ticular set of environmental circumstances; finally, because of what his par-
ticular organism has made of itself in relation to these environmental circum-
stances.
The aspect of personality which “makes of itself” is the Freudian ego.
Compared with the id, which is possessed solely of phylogenetic traits and
qualities, the ego is highly individual. But even the ego loses itself in the
phenomenon of falling in love. This fact, Freud thought, gives striking wit-
ness that even in our most discreet and individual aspect we are not so inde-
pendent as we ourselves believe. Nevertheless it is true that each personality,
as the ego achieves at least partial control of the libido, becomes individual
with respect to other personalities by reason of the particular direction which
the ego’s object choices give to libidinal energy. Every ego is a peculiar or-
ganization of desire; original craving is the same for all, but the intensity
with which various objects are desired varies greatly as between one person
and another. What we know as individual character is the whole pattern of
identifications wrought by the ego in its struggle to force the libido to aban-
don primitive, private object choices in favor of publicly acceptable subli-
mations. In the course of character development from infancy to maturity,
Freud believed that the libido passed through a series of distinguishable “or-
ganizations” which he took pains to describe in detail.
BIBLIOGRAPHY O F FREUD

1. Three Contributions to the Theory .f Sex. (Trans. by A. A. Brill). Nerv. and Ment. Dis,
Pub. Co., New York, 1930.
2. Formulations Regarding the Two Principles of Menial Functioning. Collected Papers
(ed. by Joan Riviere). L. & V. Woolf, Hogarth Press, London, and the Institute of Psycho-
analysis, 1935. VoI. 4.
3. On Narcissism. Collected Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 35 f.
4. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. (Trans. by C. J. M. Hubback) International Psycho-
analytical Press. London and Vienna, 1922.
5. The Ego and the Id. (Trans. by Joan Riviere). L. & V. Woolf, Hogarth Press, London,
and the Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1927.
6. Psychoanalyse und Libidotheorie. ,Gesammelte Schriften. International PsychoanalY-
tischer Verlag, Leipzig, Wien, Zurich, 1925-1934. Bd. 10.
7. Civilization and Its Discontents. (Trans. by L. & V. Woolf). Hogarth Press, London, and
the Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1930.
8. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. (Trans. by J. Strachey). International
Psycho-analytical Press, London and Vienna, 1922.
9. Collected Papers. Vol. 4,p. 159.
10. Uber die Libidincse Typen. Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 12.