Impulse

The concept of the “Trieb” freudien and its problems of translation

All this first part is based in particular on the problems of translation exposed in the European Vocabulaire of philosophies which one will find the references in the bibliography.

Uses and origin of meaning Trieb

Trieb comes from the verb treiben which expresses an idea of “put moving” . It is about an old word and which belongs to the daily vocabulary. With the XIXe century, in the German-speaking sphere, the biologists forged another term, Instinkt , built on a Latin root to try to clarify the animal conduits. This meaning is translated into French by instinct , it indicates the conduits which seem programmed for a given species.

The German-speaking ones have thus at their disposal two terms at least to express the conduits:

Trieb which develops the mechanical dimension of a thorough but also the interior push with the direction where a plant “pushes”.
Instinkt which stresses the determinism at work in this process of control.

The freudien use of Trieb

In its first texts, Freud seems to use without discrimination the two terms Trieb and Instinkt like two perfect synonyms. But in 1895, in the Draft of a scientific psychology , text which initially formed part of the correspondence addressed to his/her friend Fliess, Freud resolutely employs Trieb preferably with Instinkt . It is not useless to notice only it precisely does it at the time when it tries to clear up the joints between the somatic one and the psychic one.

In 1915, in Impulses and destinies of the impulses , it leans definitively for Trieb by distinguishing four elements:

the internal engine of the impulse der Drang , translated into French by thorough , constant and irrepressible;
the object of the impulse towards which it is directed;
the goal , suitable for inversion, is it towards what the impulse tends;
the source of the impulse which is the body (somatic) from where it comes.

In short : The concept Trieb comprises three dimensions which should be kept present at the spirit to include/understand the assembly of instinctual mechanics at Freud:

# a biological step because the human being is before a whole living being among others and it shares characteristics with the other animals. It is this dimension which resembles more the instinct and which returns account, for example, of the tendency which has our species to reproduce, whatever the circumstances. Romantic

# One presupposed which takes the form of a vital force acting on the body, according to the designs of Gœthe which remains a major intellectual reference at Freud;

# a psychophysical dimension which testifies to the presupposed philosophico-scientists of Freud which takes again there the models psychodynamic of the 19th century, in particular those of Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz or Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke.

Problems of the French translations of the Trieb freudien

The translation of the texts freudiens was carried out relatively tardily in France. However the reflections on the unification of the vocabulary to be used in the translations started early. As of 1927 Angelo Hesnard proposes to translate Trieb by impulse but this recommendation will remain dead letter and the majority of the first translations will translate Trieb by instinct .

One will need the obstinacy of Jacques Lacan and the publication in 1967 of the Vocabulaire of the psychoanalysis developped at the point by Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis so that the term impulse really is essential like translation of Trieb . Pulsion was itself, then, an old French word of which the use was seen started again by this translation.

Problems arising from the English translations

In English language one finds two translations of Trieb :

Drive which seems the equivalent of Trieb because it evokes the movement and because its philological root is common to that of Trieb . However, in the use , the Oxford English dictionary gives him a psychological direction which locates it as a synonym of instinct
Instinct which was adopted by the translators of the Standard Edition of works of Freud.

The European Vocabulaire of philosophies note that in a recension of the whole of the official texts of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute during the time 1940 to 1980, the Trieb freudien is translated in three ways:

Instinct (French instinct);
Instinctual drive (led instinctual);
Drive (push).

These three concurrent and/or complementary translations leave room to the blur of employment since three very diverse interpretations can find their account there: the Ego-psychology, the Behaviorism and even Pavlovian conditioning. This undoubtedly explains, partly, manifest incomprehension between the European psychoanalysis (and in particular French-speaking person) and holding them of the ego-psychology (who direct the IPA) that fought so much Lacan.

The operation of instinctual mechanics freudienne

Thus, Freud distinguishes, since 1915, various dimensions of the impulse:

# the source of the impulse which always finds its origin in the body one and which results in a tension;

# the engine interns ( Drang ) which exerts the vital impulse ;

# the goal, whether is aimed at an active or passive state;

# the object of the impulse, i.e. the means, rather additional according to Freud, which it finds to achieve, cause a drop in the tension.

To include/understand what is concerned according to Freud, it is necessary to keep in mind the principal lesson released in its theory of the infantile Sexualité in particular in the Three tests on the theory of sexuality :

Our access first of sexuality is not Génital ; this is a fundamental point for including/understanding the theory freudienne well;
We discover the world through component instincts which are based on organic functions that the human being diverts partly to constitute a clean space of pleasure, founded in particular on a recollection of the body feelings;
It is starting from these body recollections which have can also call affects that a process of Représentation will begin which will be influenced and structured by the language which preexists to the subject since it is brought to him by the entourage of the infant.

Starting from these presupposed Freud three times in the instinctual mechanics of the infant describe:

# an active time: if one takes the example of tétée, the infant wants to nourish himself because it feels an internal feeling (which it cannot represent and who is unpleasant), it seeks the center (or the feeding-bottle) or it shouts; it acts there of a time which is articulated with the Besoin and with the physiological function;

# a reflexive time which occurs after the child nourished himself: he is not any more hungry but however he continues, us says Freud, with “suçoter”;

# time passive according to Freud where the child is made “object” of the other (of the person which nourished it) and during which the process of commemorative Jouissance engages.

Impulse and repression

It is starting from this stage that one can include/understand what is concerned in the concept of Refoulement. When an unspecified subject (whatever its age) feels a Affect, it can occur at least three possibilities:

# the subject can immediately transpose the instinctual impulse in emotional expression. It would be normal operation even there of psychism: the individual translated of representations objectivables of the internal feelings (introceptives) or external (exteroceptive);

# This transposition can take a more or less long time. It is the object, to a certain extent, of a literary work like the Recherche of time lost of Marcel Proust: the narrator on several occasions reels associative wire following affects started by several events (the madeleine in the cup of tea, the Sonate of Vinteuil, etc) for finally seizing a certain number of emotions, feelings, representations associated with these affects;

# Enfin, and it is there that repression operates, when for a reason suitable for the subject, and that the psychoanalysis can possibly help to raise, association cannot be made, it moves on another representation, which is likely to produce a symptomatic translation later, repetitive.

Classification of the impulses

The impulses are partial and plural. Let us add that they always appear in a plural way. It is that, for Freud, we are crossed by contradictory tendencies which are explained in particular by the composite aspect of the impulses:

Because the impulses are Réaction S with Stimulation S (interns or external) which produce tensions, the homeostatic tendency which is the model freudien of the satisfaction results in seeking the appeasing i.e. the satisfaction of the impulses;
Because they bring into play affects and representations, they can lead to the activity and in particular to the investment Narcissique.

The evolution of the classification of the impulses is a difficulty of the thought freudienne. Freud starts by opposing the Pleasure principle, aiming at the immediate discharge when the load is present, to the Principle of reality, aiming at a deferred satisfaction, differed. It then describes impulses of autoconservation , having for goal the essential biological functions such as nourishing itself, and which would respect the principle of reality rather. On the contrary, the sexual instincts , the Libido, would accept little this tender, this constraint, and would remain dominated by the pleasure principle. This opposition thus distinguishes a need, being able to be educated, of an inevitably reticent desire to any negotiation; it is correlative revelation of a Sexualité infantile, psychic, present in the adult and forms in this direction a first paradigm. One can finally note that these impulses, aiming at the Survie or the reproduction, remain close to a biological model - Freud will write, for example, that the Théorie of the evolution explains the Névrose like consequence of the natural selection of the individuals provided with strong a Libido.

On this model several specific impulses will be specified. Let us note for example the epistemophilic impulse , desire of knowing, which would be derived from an impulse of control. This impulse leading to curiosity takes a rather large importance in the psychic development; it meets sometimes large obstacles (interdicts) which involve strong disappointments.

Among the impulses, partial, one also finds a scopic impulse . This one is desire to see and it is not really synonymous with sexual curiosity. Lacan tends to join together these two impulses by the word game " in the knowledge, there is voir".

The scopic impulses or of control are examples of nongenital sexual instincts. They respect the opposition between or not sexual sexual instincts and testify to partiality, of the independence of the various instinctual claims, which can each one carry out their own course; it thus is not about a modification of the first paradigm but well of its application.

Then a second Paradigme comes who complicates the analysis: the observation of the Play of the reel practiced by an young child, leads Freud to rectify this model. Certain impulses would not aim instinctual liquidation until a certain threshold, but well the pure and simple eradication of any excitation. They are the death instincts . Whereas the first paradigm opposes two categories of functions biological or close to the biological one, the Death instinct is freed clearly from this model. It is now a question of opposing the Life instinct (impulses of autoconservation and libido), that is to say the Eros, the vital force, with the impulses which one can personify like Thanatos.

The death instincts cannot be understood that like obeying other laws: they are subjected to the Nirvana principle. It is one of the aspects of this second paradigm which causes many controversies with the center even of the psychoanalytical community.

The first paradigm describes the radical difference between survival, reproduction and psychic sexuality: it reveals very different life instincts , the impulse being different frankly from the Génital ité, in other words, the sexual , is not reducible with the genital one. The second paradigm describes a tension inherent in the psychic life and conduit some to qualify this theory of Pessimisme freudien.

In addition, our social life gives frequent opportunities to us to see confronting these instinctual tendencies. Let us add to that the sexual instincts (in the broad sense and thus not obligatorily genital) are amorales and aim only at their achievement: they thus run up frequently against the rules which are essential in any social life, causing frustration, conflict, Culpabilité and one includes/understands better why, in the theory freudienne, the impulses are a paramount share of the theory.

Utility and problems of the impulses in the theory freudienne

This summary presentation of instinctual mechanics freudienne can appear neither luminous nor from the operational start. Without taking again more detailed explanations, here the interest of the operational dimension of this concept.

The impulses, articulated with the question of the Représentation and the Refoulement, make it possible to distinguish what is in question in the Symptôme S; this influences the control of the psychoanalytical Cure. It is the instinctual mechanics which makes it possible to explain why the symptoms of the Hystérique will be translated into conversions Soma ticks whereas the Obsession nel is rather directed towards an attempt to flee the thoughts associated with the Affect by conduits with avoidance which are used not to think more. In the same way, certain psychoanalysts proposed models of comprehension of the Autisme by the absence of the third time of the instinctual circuit.

This known as, one generally admits that certain points of the development freudienne remain obscure. Freud itself recognized that the death instinct remained largely hypothetical: is presupposed it to explain certain phenomena but it cannot be shown as such. However of many authors, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Dostoïevski showed that the human being could be worked by the Passion of the removal of the other even if this were to lead to the disappearance of the attacker.

Finally some critical were emitted in connection with the presupposed implicit ones with work in the theory freudienne of the impulses, in particular the recourse to dynamic models (Homéostasie, suppression of the Excitation) which appear to us exceeded. For this reason attempts, like those of Lacan, while keeping the essence of the instinctual postulate refer to other ideal models, like the theory of meaning or topology to circumvent this difficulty.

References

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