Freud's Theory of Drives: Psychic Apparatus, Topographic and Structural Models

Psychic Apparatus: Consciousness and Attention

The surface of the psychic apparatus is characterized by consciousness. The focus of attention and its characteristics include vividness and speed, along with concentration and the need for neutralized energy to sustain it. Consciousness functions as the organ of voluntary, deliberate, intentional, and self-reflective action.

Freud's Topographic and Structural Models

During the period described by the first topographic model, Freud wrote in parallel about the theory of drives based on the pleasure/displeasure principle.

In 1923, he shifted to the second structural model, comprising the ego, id, and superego, and in parallel proposed the drives of life and death.

Theory of Drives

In his metapsychological works, Freud worked with his first theory of drives: sexual drives (libido) and self-preservation or ego drives (Freud, 1910). This theory allowed him to satisfactorily explain transference neuroses, but not psychosis, because the elements needed to understand the functioning of the ego were still missing.

Transference Neurosis

• Refers to a situation in which a person, within the analytic setting, can displace the affects that produce the emotional disturbance.

Transference

• Refers to the displacement of disturbing affects from the past onto the present, establishing a type of affect between two people.

What a Drive Involves

• Impetus: The motor force or factor, or the measure of the work demand that the drive represents.
• Aim: The satisfaction achieved by cancelling the state of stimulation at the drive's source. The aim consists in reaching a state of calm in the mind, and for this it requires objects (caregivers).
• Object: That in or through which the drive can achieve its aim. It refers to the bond with an object.
• Source: An internal somatic process located in an organ or part of the body, whose stimulus is represented in the mind. The source of the drive is somatic/biological and is not directly visible, but is accessed through desires.

Freud's Dual Libido Theory

Freud (1915) developed this theory in response to Jung, who held that there was only one libido. Freud proposed that there are two libidos: the object libido (directed toward the non-self, the other, the caregiver) and the ego libido (directed toward the self).