Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Jenseits des Lustprinzips) is a 1920 essay by Sigmund Freud. It marks a major turning point in the formulation of his drive theory, where Freud had previously attributed self-preservation in human behavior to the drives of Eros and the regulation of libido, governed by the pleasure principle. Revising this as inconclusive, Freud theorized beyond the pleasure principle, newly considering the death drives (or Thanatos, the Greek personification of death) which refers to the tendency towards destruction and annihilation, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness. The essay, marking Freud's major revision of his drive theory, elaborates on the struggle between two opposing drives. In the first few sections, Freud describes these as Eros, which produces creativity, harmony, sexual connection, reproduction, and self-preservation; and the "death drives" (what some call "Thanatos"), which brings destruction, repetition, aggression, compulsion, and self-destruction. In sections IV and V, Freud posits that the process of creating living cells binds energy and creates an imbalance. It is the pressure of matter to return to its original state which gives cells their quality of living. The process is analogous to the creation and exhaustion of a battery. This pressure for molecular diffusion is referred to as a "death-wish". The compulsion of the matter in cells to return to a diffuse, inanimate state extends to the whole living organism. Thus, the psychological death-wish is a manifestation of an underlying physical compulsion present in every cell, which Freud directly corresponds to the death drives. Freud also states the basic differences, as he saw them, between his approach and Carl Jung's, and summarizes published research into basic drives in Section VI to establish his revisions. What have been called the "two distinct frescoes or canti" of Beyond the Pleasure Principle break between sections III and IV.