PSY 130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Protection Mechanism, Psych, Anna Freud
Document Summary
Libido and thanatos: the topographic model provides the play field; the characters are provided by the structural model. Yet what sets in motion the freud system. Freud believed that human action is driven by powerful internal forces which he called triebe, which are loosely interpreted as drives or instincts. Freud defines two main instinct categories: life or sexual instinct, commonly referred to as libido, and death or violent instinct, known as thanatos. Yet in a rather broad sense he used this definition. Sexually driven activities involve not only those with obvious sexual content but also almost any activity that seeks to obtain gratification. Freud late in his career added the sense of death the idea that we must all die and return to earth. The unconscious motive, however, is seldom articulated in the form of obvious self-destruction. Energy does not vanish within a physical structure, but persists in finite quantities.
