Libido The essence of life and death

Although the number of instincts can be unlimited, Freud recognized the existence of two main groups: the instincts of life and death. The first group (under the general name Eros) includes all the forces that serve the purpose of maintaining vital processes and ensuring the reproduction of the species. Recognizing the great importance of the life instincts in the physical organization of individuals, Freud considered sexual instincts to be the most essential for the development of the personality.
The energy of sexual instincts is called libido (from the Latin. "Want" or "desire"), or the energy of libido - a term used in the meaning of the energy of life instincts in general.
Libido is a certain amount of psychic energy that finds relief only in sexual behavior.
Freud believed that there was not one sexual instinct, but several. Each of them is associated with a specific area of ​​the body, called the erogenous zone. In a sense, the whole body is one large erogenous zone, but psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the mouth, anus and genitals. Freud was convinced that erogenous zones are potential sources of tension and that manipulation in the region of these zones leads to a decrease in tension and causes pleasant sensations. So, biting or sucking causes oral pleasure, emptying the intestines leads to anal satisfaction, and masturbation gives genital satisfaction.
The second group, the death instincts, called Thanatos, is the basis of all manifestations of cruelty, aggression, suicide and murder. Unlike the energy of the libido, as the energy of the instincts of life, the energy of the death instincts did not receive a special name. However, Freud considered them biologically determined and just as important in the regulation of human behavior as the instincts of life. He believed that the death instincts obey the principle of entropy (that is, the law of thermodynamics, according to which any energy system tends to preserve dynamic equilibrium). Referring to Schopenhauer, Freud stated: "The goal of life is death." Thus, he wanted to say that all living organisms have a compulsive desire to return to the indefinite state from which they came. That is, Freud believed that people are inherent desire for death. The acuteness of this statement, however, is somewhat mitigated by the fact that modern psychoanalysts do not pay such attention to the death instinct. This is probably the most controversial and least shared aspect of Freud's theory.