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KMID : 0385320080190010046
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Journal of Korean Psychoanalytic Society
2008 Volume.19 No. 1 p.46 ~ p.53
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An Essay on Freud’s View of Instinct and It’s Interpretation through Yin-Yang Doctrine of Confucianism
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Hwang Ik-Keun
Yang Jong-Chul
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Abstract
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Although Freud’s classification of instincts changed with the development of psychoanalysis, he constantly adhered to the conception that may take the form of polar opposites. That is, he felt that human motivation is ultimately reducible to two broadly defined tendencies that are in opposition to each other. Over time, the grouping she proposed went through the following phases：Sexual instinct versus self-preservative instinct, object love versus self love, sexual instinct versus aggressive instinct, and life instinct versus death instinct. The view of instincts as opposing forces is similar to the Confucian view of Chi(氣), which suggest that universal energy is composed of the oppositional forces of Yin(陰, passive force) and Yang(陽, active force). The authors tried to make a preliminary interpretation of Freud’s view of instincts, as being composed of two oppositional forces, through the Confucian Yin-Yang doctrine of the universe. Freud proposed that libido is a motivational power of instinctual drive. He suggested that it is a form of energy flexible in terms of investing or withdrawing from the self and object. His view of libido is comparable to the Confucian view of Chi as an universal energy circulating throughout living organisms while affecting human emotions and drives. The Confucian idea of seeing the deficiency of Chi as a cause of pathology is in contrast to Freud’s view that the stagnation of libido is a cause of psychopathology. Eros and thanatos originate and differentiate from the same root of Pathos(情) just as Yin and Yang originate and differentiate from the same root of Chi. From the Yin-Yang perspective, which is a relativistic point of view, love can be interpreted as a minimized state of hate and hate as minimized state of love. Love transforms into hate and hate into love when they reach extreme polarity. This transformation is possible through Chi’s internal "mechanism of transforming or changing into the opposite when one or the other go to the extreme(極則 反)" in order to maintain balance between the two opposing forces. However, according to Freud’s dynamic view of the human psyche, such change is possible not by transformation but by the mental mechanism of reaction formation. Love is not the absence of hate, but a repression of hate. Similarly, hate is not the absence of love but a repression of love.
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KEYWORD
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Freud, Instinct theory, Chi(universal energy), Yin(passive force), Yang(active force), Confucianism
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