freud's drive theory

okay, here's my take on this...

Freud's drive theory involves two drives: sexuality and aggression. His sense was that pathology comes not from the original id based, pleasure seeking motivated by these drives,  or the subsequent anxiety and guilt about them, but the unconscious defense against them. The libido is sexual energy, a power and movement located in the body. His psychosexual stages look at how we experience pleasure and aggression in our early life. The oral stage is a time when we experience the pleasure of our mother's breast and take all of the nourishment we need in through our mouths. During weaning, we experience the pain and anguish of needing to give this up, of being castrated (denied unbarred access to our gratification.) This happens again during the anal stage, as we are made to inhibit our desire to eliminate when ever we want; the demands of others become more important than our pleasure gratification. During the Oedipal stage, we direct all of our libidinal desires toward the parent of the opposite sex. Realizing that we can't have this person, that they won't be entirely ours, is another devastating disappointment. This is about growing up, tolerating the disappointments and frustrations of the world's demands on us. Okay, I'll use a sippy cup, go in the big potty and mommy or daddy won't be here to meet my every need forever.

These are all castrations; thwarted desire, being told no. Neurosis is an attempt to alter this unbearable reality. We inhibit our desire because it is too painful to grieve this loss. In the myth, the goddess Psyche is eternally wedded to Eros;  Freud saw pathology of the soul as it's divorce from erotic love . Symptomatic acts and dreams illuminate repressed hidden desires that cannot be tolerated in our conscious mind. As we bring the light of our awareness to this disowned energy, we can reclaim it, make choices about what we do with it. Sublimation is to pull this energy up into a higher place. Much of the work I do with clients involves reclaiming repressed or lost aspects of their aliveness and Freud's thinking is a another frame for me to hang this work on.