Eros: What Is The Life Drive According To Sigmund Freud And Psychoanalysis
Although the concept of eroticism is generally related to sex, the truth is that it is not limited to it: eroticism also includes a part of sensuality, falling in love, bonding, play and vitality. And in fact, it is something that does not even have to refer to a human being: a theme, idea or even landscape can seem erotic to us in a certain sense. Eroticism is an aspect much worked on by numerous authors, probably one of the best known being Sigmund Freud, who identified Eros and sexual energy or libido as the fundamental pieces of psychic life. And it is about this author’s vision of the concept that we are going to talk about throughout this article.
To understand the concept of Eros from a psychoanalytic perspective, it is first necessary to know the concept of drive and its importance in the human psyche.
Any impulse or force that leads the subject to carry out some type of action, generally in order to satisfy some type of need, is called drive. These are powerful forces that arise in a state of bodily tension, which seeks to be resolved.
The drive is ultimately the origin of all mental activity being a psychic representative of the body’s somatic stimuli, and consists of a source (organ from which the drive is born), force (degree of drive to action), goal (satisfaction of the excitement) and object (what satisfies it).
It is therefore one of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, along with the unconscious, when explaining psychic life. Specifically, it is part of Freud’s so-called economic model of personality, which attempts to explain human performance as a product of the attempt to resolve states of bodily tension.
The author considered that the psychic energy that governs our behavior was based on sexual drives, integrating these into the concept of libido (which would not only include sex but considers it as the main force) and linking it with the search for satisfaction and pleasure. From this idea, which would later include not only sexual energy but also that dedicated to self-preservation, arises the notion of life drive, also known as Eros.
Eros: life drive
The name Eros or life drive is the impulse that generates activation and excitement at an organic level that appears with the main objective of guarantee survival and keep living matter united and integrated generally seeking to generate increasingly complex unions and the satisfaction of needs, especially sexual.
This type of drive integrates two concepts that Freud initially considered separate: the sexual drive and the self-construction drive. It is a force that generates dynamism and activity, leading to behavior and the search for satisfaction.
This principle is based on the pleasure principle, according to which the psyche’s main function is to seek pleasure and avoid displeasure. This is achieved by seeking to reduce tension. It is also influenced and mediated by the reality principle: depending on the consideration that the drive may be inadequate or unrealizable (something that is linked to the ego and the superego), we can sublimate it and reach partial gratification through a detour. .
Eros also leads us to maintain relationships both with ourselves and with others, allowing the emergence of rapprochement and identification with others.
There are multiple acts in which Eros is expressed, resulting in the life drive easily visible: in addition to sex, eating, defecating, kissing and caressing, or dreams are examples of this. It requires an object to address and from which to obtain gratification.
A fundamental concept in psychoanalysis
The concept of the life drive and Eros is one of the nuclear elements of Freud’s theory, along with the ideas of the unconscious and intrapsychic conflicts.
One of the elements that greatly influences is the Freudian vision of psychosexual development, in which the focus of sexual gratification varies throughout development (passing through the mouth, anus, phallus and genitals) and can there are fixations that produce pathological difficulties. It is also basic in the generation of conflicts between the It (unconscious desires and impulses) and the Ego, causing the latter to apply the reality principle and produce a balance between censorship and satisfaction of impulses.
His relationship with Thanatos
Although the idea of libido and the sexual drive already existed long before in Freud’s thought, the concept of Eros was born at the same time as that of a type of drive opposite to it: the death drive or Thanatos.
Both concepts are completely opposite: Eros is life and vitality, dynamism, sexuality and the search for pleasure and survival while Thanatos represents the unconscious desire for death, back to the inorganic, regression, rest and dissolution. Eros is union and Thanatos disintegration.
However, interdependent drives that appear together and even partially merge, leading us to different types of behavior. In fact, there is no human action in which both components do not exist. In conclusion: there is no death without life and no life without death.
