We Are Driven

Abstract

Is metapsychology out-or in again? Is it a millstone tied around our necks-or is it an intriguing Freudian witch whom we can even dance with? Is the concept of drives an outmoded oddity-or an indispensable companion, inspiring our understanding of the patient's material and even opening new windows for further development? Can we proceed with the concept of structures and object relationships alone -or do we need the concept of drives in order to understand what these object relationships are all about? The author clearly opts for the second option in each of these pairs of alternatives. Musing on the sophisticated metapsychology debate that unsettled psychoanalysis in the United States for many years, she reviews some of the most frequently quoted objections to the concept of drives. Further, she offers an introduction to modern drive theory with the new duality of sexual and preservative drives, as well as a different concept of aggression, and explains how drives relate to structures-specifically, to the representations of self and object.

The workable here and now and the why of there and then

“…To do this let us first take a schematic look at what leads patients to our offices. First noted by Freud (1914), and since by many others, functioning dominated by the unconscious is a ‘doing’ type of thinking, leading to the idea that the unconscious is made up of action representations that have a magnetic pull (Busch, 2007, 2009b), or, as Schmidt‐Hellerau (2005) has argued, we are driven to act in these ways. Clinically we see this magnetic pull daily in our offices where for a patient every lover becomes the same unsatisfying loser, every authority figure is the same outrageous dictator, and we become whoever the patient needs us to be.…”

Serviceable and consistent: The goal of metapsychology

“… As I have shown elsewhere Freud's “self‐preservative” drive would be better termed “preservative drive,” thus recognizing its self ‐ as well as its object‐preservative functions (Schmidt‐Hellerau, , , ). …”

“…As I have shown elsewhere (Schmidt-Hellerau, 2001, pp. 3-40;2005) the arguments against metapsychology in general and drive theory in particular were sophisticated but mistaken and misleading. Still they were very effective.…”

“…Freud's effort was to conceptualize how the mindas already existingworks. It was Bion, who went one step further in trying to describewith the shift from beta to alpha-elementshow mental processes occur in the first place.4 As I have shown elsewhere Freud's "self-preservative" drive would be better termed "preservative drive," thus recognizing its self-as well as its object-preservative functions(Schmidt-Hellerau, 2001, 2005, 2006.…”