The Experience of Pleasure: A Perspective Between Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Pleasure is more than a mere sensory event, but rather it can be conceptualized as a complex, multiform experience involving memory, motivation, homeostasis, and, sometimes, negative affects. According to Freud, affect is a perceptual modality that registers the internal drive state of the subject rather than the objective experience of the external world, and the quality of this perceptual modality is calibrated in degrees of pleasure and displeasure. Within this conceptual framework, the aim of drive is always pleasure, and objects become significant in so far as they provide a way of discharging drives pressure. Subsequent conceptual psychoanalytic developments have partially rejected such metapsychological theorizations, postulating that other intrinsic motivations that are independent from libido can be observed in humans. Intrinsic motivation broadly refers to a set of psychological concepts including the inherent propensity to pursue one’s choices, to seek out novelty and challenges, to satisfy curiosity and competence, and to extend one’s capacities and control over events. What these concepts have in common is an inner endorsement of one’s action, which is the sense that action is self-generated and is one’s own. The notions of pleasure, drives, and affects are all of utmost importance for a neuropsychoanalytic understanding of mental functioning, due to their capability to explain desire, thought, and behavior from the perspective of human subjective experience. The purpose of this paper is thus to discuss psychoanalytic conceptual developments that have addressed pleasure, drives, and affects, in the light of recent findings coming from neurosciences. In particular, we will explore for insights from Panksepp’s theory of primary-process emotional feelings, including the notion of “wanting” and “liking” as dissociable components of reward. In the last part of the paper, we will indicate possible theoretical implications for a neuropsychoanalytic understanding of libido-independent intrinsic motivations and their relationship with the self, including neuroscientific observations on self-related processes, agency, body-ownerships, and attachment.

The Potential Role of the Early Maladaptive Schema in Behavioral Addictions Among Late Adolescents and Young Adults

“…In fact, if by definition, the EMSs are stable and perpetuated over time, when patients with BAs experience emotional triggers, they will reactivate specific EMSs, and this will continue the vicious circle. Just as we said in the introduction, the EMSs are "comprised of memories, emotions, cognitions and bodily sensations regarding oneself and one's relationship with others, " it could be assumed that many alterations in cognition, in self-perceptions of emotions (i.e., alexithymia), and in the experience of pleasure (i.e., anhedonia), repeatedly reported in the literature among patients with BAs (Guillot et al, 2016;Moccia et al, 2017Moccia et al, , 2018, may be associated with the development and perpetuation of EMSs.…”

Internet Gaming Disorder in Adolescents With Psychiatric Disorder: Two Case Reports Using a Developmental Framework

“…In this case report, we may hypothesize that B’s compulsive search for an object of immediate pleasure through gaming may have resulted from maladaptive self-regulation strategies in a context where other forms of emotional self-regulation strategies (e.g., cognitive appraisal, seeking support) are inefficient. Using a psychodynamic view, gaming behavior can be regarded as a substitute for other common sources of pleasure at this age at an object level (e.g., poor family and peer relationship) and a narcissistic level (low self-gratification in a context of failure/poor academic or educational performance) (46, 47). The limitation of B’s affective domain to gaming may be partly explained by the necessity to restrict possible sources of pleasure/displeasure to limited and thus predictable factors in his environment.…”

Trends in (not) using scales in major depression: A categorization and clinical orientation

“…When patients and caregivers were asked what they consider important in being cured from depression, caregivers emphasize the reduction of depressive symptoms, while patients take a greater interest in restoration of a meaningful life and in return of positive affect [71]. However, the concept of positive affect (and associated concepts: hedonic tone, pleasure, motivation, and reward) is at the risk of simplification: it has been suggested that a better disentangling of these concepts is helpful in understanding their neurobiological underpinnings [72].…”