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Instinctual Drives

    Freud claimed that instinctual drives were not learned, but rather inborn or genetically derived.  “Instinctual drives are the form that physiological forces take in mental life” (Hales 143).  When a person is aroused, his or her instinctual drive is energized.  The excess energy must be discharged and is done so by performing a certain action.  If the action does not actually take place, the mind reenacts it as a fantasy.  Each instinct has four main essentials: source, impetus, aim, and object.  The source is the body part from where the instinct arises.  The impetus is the amount of energy that has been created and the aim is the direction of this energy’s discharge (Kaplan 212).  The aim is what receives what is discharged.  The object is that through which gratification of the source may be found.  Freud came up with four distinct instincts that resided in the mind: aggression, libido, and the ego instinct. 

            Aggression arises from the unconscious desire to be destructive and cause disorder.  Freud believed this drive may lead to homicide, or if turned inwards, suicide.  He then observed that many of his patients had sexual instincts leading to discharges that may not have always been deemed appropriate.  Thus Freud began to discover the libido.  The libido is defined as “the force by which the sexual instinct is represented in the mind” (Kaplan 212).  The libido is what causes a person to have sexual fantasies.  The ego instinct is the drive to do what is necessary to sustain life.  Freud at first believed that the ego and sexual instincts together would create a life-preservation instinct.  In 1914, Freud started to establish a new concept of Narcissism.  Based on Greek mythology, Narcissus was a young, handsome man who caught eye of his reflection in a lake and fell in love with it.  His attempt to embrace his beautiful image caused him to drown (Kaplan 213).   Freud understood this situation in his patients as the libidinal instincts turned inside and not directed towards others.  The patients still lived properly, leaving the libidinal instinct to be seen as predominantly a pleasurable instinct and the ego instinct to be all other nonsexual instincts need for life.