The Theory of PsychoanalysisJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
The Theory of Psychoanalysis
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Neuroses; Psychoanalysis; Psychology, Pathological; Sex
In the sphere of sexuality, libido does take that form whose enormous
importance justifies us in the choice of the term “libido,” in its
strict sexual sense. Here for the first time libido appears in the form
of an undifferentiated sexual primitive power, as an energy of growth,
clearly forcing the individual towards division, budding, etc. The
clearest separation of the two forms of libido is found among those
animals where the stage of nutrition is separated by the pupa stage from
the stage of sexuality. Out of this sexual primitive power, through
which one small creature produces millions of eggs and sperm,
derivatives have been developed by extraordinary restriction of
fecundity, the functions of which are maintained by a special
differentiated libido. This differentiated libido is henceforth
_desexualized_, for it is dissociated from its original function of
producing eggs and sperm, nor is there any possibility of restoring it
to its original function. The whole process of development consists in
the increasing absorption of the libido which only created, originally,
products of generation in the secondary functions of attraction, and
protection of offspring. This development presupposes a quite different
and much more complicated relationship to reality, a true function of
reality which is functionally inseparable from the needs of
reproduction. Thus the altered mode of reproduction involves a
correspondingly increased adaptation to reality. This, of course, does
not imply that the function of reality is exclusively due to
differentiation in reproduction. I am aware that a large part of the
instinct of nutrition is connected with it. Thus we arrive at an insight
into certain primitive conditions of the function of reality. It would
be fundamentally wrong to pretend that the compelling source is still a
sexual one. It _was_ largely a sexual one originally. The process of
absorption of the primitive libido into secondary functions certainly
always took place in the form of so-called affluxes of sexual libido
(“libidinöse Zuschüsse”).
That is to say, sexuality was diverted from its original destination, a
definite quantity was used up in the mechanisms of mutual attraction and
of protection of offspring. This transference of sexual libido from the
sexual sphere to associated functions is still taking place (_e. g._,
modern neo-Malthusianism is the artificial continuation of the natural
tendency). We call this process _sublimation_, when this operation
occurs without injury to the adaptation of the individual; we call it
_repression_—when the attempt fails. From the descriptive standpoint
psychoanalysis accepts the multiplicity of instincts, and, among them,
the instinct of sexuality as a special phenomenon, moreover, it
recognizes certain affluxes of the libido to asexual instincts.
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