Freud's “Beyond the pleasure principle”: The end of psychoanalysis or its new beginning?

¹The paper is being published in “Vom Sammeln, Bedenken und Deuten. Gerhard Fichtner zu Ehren” [Collections and Interpretations. In Honor of Gerhard Fichtner]. In L. Hermanns & A. Hirschmüller (eds), Beiheft zum Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog (in press).

Abstract

Taking Freud's “Beyond the pleasure principle” as a case in point, the author draws attention to how Freud had a tendency to develop different theories simultaneously and to neglect to state how they were related to each other. The theory of traumatic neurosis, which he explains by both the theory of the two egos and the theory of the mental apparatus and the energies at work within it, is cited as an example. Similarly, Freud's definition of the death instinct is also not reconcilable with his previous definition of the instinctual drives. A third example is that of Eros, important parts of whose definition are at variance with Freud's previously formulated definition of the sexual drives. In none of these cases, the author argues, did Freud replace the “old” theory “with the “new” one. He simply retained the old theory and added the new one, without integrating them.

Key words:

• “Beyond the pleasure principle”
• death instinct
• Eros
• traumatic neuroses
• Freud's theory

Notes

¹ The paper is being published in “Vom Sammeln, Bedenken und Deuten. Gerhard Fichtner zu Ehren” [Collections and Interpretations. In Honor of Gerhard Fichtner]. In L. Hermanns & A. Hirschmüller (eds), Beiheft zum Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog (in press).

² In what follows F/Fer denotes the correspondence between Freud and Ferenczi, followed by the volume number. F/Ei, F/AF and F/Jo refer to Freud's correspondence with Eitingon, Anna Freud, and Jones, respectively.

³ “Traumatic neuroses are not in their essence the same thing as the spontaneous neuroses which we are in the habit of investigating and treating by analysis; nor have we yet succeeded in bringing them into harmony with our views” (Freud, 1916–17, p. 274).

⁴ The German term used here was “Traumgebilde.” In the Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi, Traumgebilde is translated as “dream formation” (F/Fer 2, 305). However, in this context, “figment of a dream” would seem to fit better, a figment being something made; there is also the analogy to the English expression “figment of the imagination” (translator's note).

⁵ Freud had already introduced the term “repetition compulsion” in “The uncanny” (1919c, p. 238), where his description of it was similar to that in “Beyond,” but without linking it to biology – a further indication of the connection between the two papers written in the spring and summer of 1919.

⁶ For more on the notes Freud wrote in the margins of Weismann's publications and what he underlined in them, see Davies and Fichtner (2006, p. 524, Nos. 3569, 3570, and 3571).

⁷ Some initial answers to this question can be found in “The uncanny” (Freud, 1919c) and the revision of the dream theory (1920b); the latter was written immediately after Freud had finished “Beyond” in the summer of 1920. The implications of the new approach for clinical theory are, of course, later to be found mainly in “The ego and the id” (1923).

⁸ Seen from this angle, the conceptualization of the sexual instincts could be allocated to childhood and adolescence, and possibly also the early and midlife phase of adulthood, Eros and the recognition of death to late adulthood and old age. Aichhorn (2012) recently offered a different interpretation, according to which “Beyond” is not about age or destructiveness, but about the way in which sexuality breaks into our lives in adolescence.

⁹ To cite a counterexample, Sauvant (2012) has recently convincingly demonstrated that Freud uses term “sexual” with contradictory meanings in different places, thus creating confusion.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ulrike May

Author

Dr. Ulrike May is a member of the German Psychoanalytical Association and the International Psychoanalytical Association and works in private practice in Berlin. She has written several articles on the history of psychoanalytic theory and Freud's clinical practice; see www.may-schroeter.de