Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Lecture Three Part 2 " How the Mind Functions" Basic Emotional Needs/Drives

MOTIVATIONS/DRIVES/BASIC EMOTIONAL NEEDS.......... Neuroscience has made a significant contribution to psychoanalytic theory in the area of our deepest motivations. What is it that motivates homo sapiens? What instinctual drives do we share with all mammals? What basic emotional needs wish to be met? These questions are addressed by psychoanalysis under the heading of Drive Theory. In his last drive theory Freud postulated two drives: The Life Drive ( often referred to as the sex drive), and the Death Drive ( often referred to as the aggressive drive.) The life drive consisted of everythig that drives us toward survival and reproductive success. The death drive consisted of everything that drives us toward destruction and extinction. The energy of the life drive was called libido and the death drive energy was sometimes called destrudo. These drives were felt as either pleasure or unpleasure. Both psychoanalysis and neuroscience affirm Freud's Pleasure Principle that says we seek what is pleasureable and we avoid what is unpleasureable. In psychoanalysis these two instincual drives of life (sex) and death (aggression) were considered functions of that part of the mind known as the ID. The ID is the source of our primal instincts/drives/needs. It is the source of our passions. It is our animal nature that we share with all other mammals. We are born with our ID. It is built in and innate. It is cognitively unconscious but NOT affectively. I will write more about this later........Now I want to share how modern neuroscience adds to psychoanalysis. Neuroscience discovered a new fact about these primal needs. It is called Homeostasis. This is a biological concept. Homeostasis teaches us that at primal levels we are motivated to maintain biological and psychological equilibrium. If we are hungry we are motivated to eat in order to become satisfied once again. The same is true if we are thirsty, or hot or cold, etc. But the same principle applies to our emotional needs as well. Take sex for example: We know that for all the reasons mentioned above that we are motivated to have sex. We are built by evolution to mate and reproduce. If we are not engaging in needed sexual behavoir we feel frustration, and our minds drive us to do so in order that we may be sexually satisfied, and return to a state of equilibrium. This is what sexual frustration and satisfaction is all about. These emotional needs are motivated by the feeling of pleasure. Returning from a state of unpleasure to equilibrium is pleasureable. To remain frustrated is unpleasureable. But the neuroscience understanding of homeostasis also says we have a deeper need than pleasure, and that is the need for tranquility. At our most basic level we want to have NO needs. We do not want to feel driven to satisfy deep urges, wishes, and desires. We want peace and tranquility. Solms links this need to Freud's concept of Nirvana--the state of Nirvana being total peace, satisfaction or satiation (Freud 1920.) He further says this is why Freud called his second drive the Death Drive. The death drive, corrected by homeostasis and the Nirvana Principle, means we desire no discomfort at all--no conflicts or turmoil within. This means total tranquility, not unlike death itself. This is why Freud mistakenly called it the death drive. What we have learned from neuroscience is that it is not a death drive that drives us toward tranquility. It is the ideal of no tension, no feelings, no drivenness, but complete peace. So the discovery of homeostasis corrected Freud's death drive. This homeostatic drive toward tranquility and Nirvana is also built in........ Let me just say here that both psychoanalysis and neuroscience believe we are deeply motivated and driven animals. This requires built in motivations or basic emotions. Whenever we satisfy these needs we feel good as a result of the pleasure principle. When we do not get these basic needs successfully met we feel bad. The difference in psychoanalysis and neuroscience is that neuroscience believes there are more than these traditional two drives/needs of sex and agression that motivate us. Neuroscience teaches that we have seven built in emotional  needs that drive us ( Panksepp 2012.) And what drives us as human beings are the feelings (affects) associated with these needs.